Chadwick Stokes Urmston was born February 26, 1976, in Boston, Massachusetts, into a large family. He graduated from Dover-Sherborn High School in 1994, and went on to attend both Middlebury College and NYU. During this time, Urmston briefly lived in Zimbabwe, where he befriended a local fieldworker named Elias. Later, Urmston wrote a song titled "Elias" for Dispatch's 1996 album "Silent Steeples", which became one of their most well known songs. Many of his songs also reference where he grew up going in the summer, West Chop, Massachusetts.
See Dispatch for a complete history of the band.
In 1995, while attending Middlebury College, Urmston met Pete Heimbold and formed the band Hermit Thrush. He later formed a band called One Fell Swoop with Heimbold and Brad Corrigan; this group would ultimately become known as Dispatch. They quickly gained a huge grassroots college following and achieved unprecedented success in the music industry independent of the standard record label control. The band promoted its own tours and music with the help of early file sharing services like Napster to reach thousands of fans. In this manner, they achieved stardom without the typical assistance of album singles played on major radio stations.

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