Joseph P. Powell

As printed in 1910

JOSEPH P. POWELL.

In this sketch is mentioned a man whose life has varied from the common order. In earlier life serving his fellow men as a minister of the gospel, now he is serving them efficiently as a real estate dealer and a banker, and the same integrity which characterized him as a minister makes his work in these capacities to be of double value, for there is unquestioned confidence in him.

Joseph P. Povv'ell was born in Washington township, Lafayette county. Missouri, December 6, 1867, son of Thomas J. Powell, born in the same township March 26, 1840. The latter was the son of Richard Powell, born in Tennessee, the first settler of Washington township, where he made his home in 1819, and where he died early in the forties. Thomas Powell married Dorinda Hatton, who was born in Johnson county, Missouri, April 4, 1 84 1, and whose parents were among the early settlers of that county. Thomas Powell located in Washington township and lived on a farm there until 1905, when he moved to Odessa, where he died August 20, 1907. He and his wife were the parents of thirteen children, of whom the following seven survive: Richard W., David J., Joseph P., Milton S., Walter S., Alice (the wife of David Downs, of Washington township), and Etta (wife of Frank Ryland, of Odessa).

Joseph P. Powell spent his early life on his father's farm. He was educated in the public schools of Odessa, William Jewell College, and then at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at Louisville. For five or six years he was engaged in the ministry at Oak Grove and Kansas City, then on account of failing health he was obliged, greatly against his will, to relinquish the ministry and engaged in the real estate business, coming to Odessa in 1904. He is greatly interested in Lafayette county farming lands and also in Texas land. In the spring of 1910 he organized the Citizens Bank of Odessa and was elected president of the bank.

Mr. Powell was married in Napoleon, Lafayette county, on June 28, 1893, to Annie J. Roberts, who was born in Lawrence, Kansas, April 4, 1865, the daughter of John F. and Martha (Shields) Roberts and reared in Lafayette county. To this union three children have been born, Lawrence R., Norine M. and Helen D.

Mr. Powell is a member of Mount Hope Lodge of Masons and of the Modern Woodmen. He is a man of strong character, affable and genial, of good business ability, well liked and popular, and one who merits much.

As printed in Young's history of Lafayette County, Missouri (1910). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.