Shotwell Powell (1808-1896)

    This rare portrait of Shotwell Powell is located in the collection of the 

      Ontario County Historical Society in Canandaigua, New York.

   Following up on August 17th's article on Naples, New York resident and legislator Cyrillo Southworth Lincoln, today's profile highlights the life of Shotwell Powell, another prominent 19th century resident of Ontario County, New York who was elected to two terms in the State Assembly in 1859 and 1860. Powell received a brief mention in Lincoln's profile a few weeks ago after I visited both of their gravesites at the Rose Ridge Cemetery in Naples while on vacation. At the time of that visit I hadn't yet seen an actual portrait of Mr. Powell and now, because of the diligence of Blanche Warner of the Naples Library and Ontario Historical Society Curator Wilma Townsend, a picture of Shotwell Powell has been located in the collection of the Ontario County Historical Society. I must give a hearty thank you to both of these ladies for their kind help in regards to researching this obscure man, as his article here really wouldn't be the same without your help!
   We'll begin with the birth of Shotwell Powell, which occurred in the small village of Clinton in Dutchess County, New York on October 31, 1808. The Rootsweb genealogical website gives note that Shotwell was one of fifteen children born to James and Martha Townsend Powell, natives of New Jersey and Westchester County, New York. Young Shotwell received a common school education in his birth county, and later spent several years of his adolescence living with an uncle in New Jersey.
   After returning to New York, Powell engaged in farming until relocating to Michigan in 1832. Soon after his arrival he "purchased several lots in that new country, remaining there about two years." In 1834 he returned home to Clinton, where he "purchased part of his old home", this according to his Naples Record obituary.
   On September 17, 1835, Powell married fellow Clinton, NY native Sarah G. Clapp (1815-1889) and they eventually became the parents of three children: Thomas J. (1837-1906), Israel (1839-1918) and Lydia Ann (1841-1917). In a strange and truly interesting twist, research has been found that notes that Lydia Ann Powell married on February 27, 1870, to William Elton Lincoln (1837-1915), who happened to be the younger brother of Cyrillo Southworth Lincoln!!! A truly amazing historical fact/political coincidence that I wouldn't have known about had I not begun digging through Shotwell Powell's genealogy! 
  The Powell family continued to reside in Clinton until 1844 when they moved to South Bristol in Ontario County, New York. Powell purchased a farm here (later referred to as Powell Hill) and over the succeeding years engaged in farming, while also being involved in local political affairs. 

                                Shotwell Powell's name as it appeared in an 1860s New York Red Book.

   In November 1858 Powell was elected to the New York State Assembly as a Republican, officially taking office in January of the next year. He was re-elected to the Assembly for the 1860 session and during his two terms is mentioned as having "secured the passage of many important measures, among which was one to prevent slave hunting in the Empire State."  Powell's tenure in the legislature is listed by Milliken's History of Ontario County as one of distinction, with Powell being mentioned as "a man of strong convictions and great moral courage, a strong anti-slavery man, an opponent to capital punishment, and a zealous advocate of temperance." After leaving the assembly Powell refrained from political activity until 1876, and in that year mounted an unsuccessful campaign as the Prohibition Party candidate for State Canal Commissioner of New York. 

                   An 1876 article mentioning Powell's candidacy for State Canal Commissioner.

   In 1870 Powell and his wife removed to Virginia, where Shotwell is known to have bought up large tracts of land, later establishing a Quaker colony in the Keysville, Virginia area. As a member of the Society of Friends, Powell is listed in his obituary as investing $6,000 for a piece of land to develop this settlement, "which he retained an interest in until his death." Powell's obituary also notes that "all liquor selling was to be excluded from the colony."
  For the next two decades, Powell would spend his winters in Virginia and his summers at his home in South Bristol, where he resettled permanently in 1889. In his twilight years, Powell maintained a membership in the Western New York Horticultural Society and is listed as attending its annual meeting in 1893. While at this meeting, Powell is listed as stating that "I want to say that in this, my 85th year, this is the grandest meeting I have ever attended. Progress is the immutable order of our being, and I think we are progressing."
   As he approached his 88th year, Powell's health began to fail, and in March of 1896 was stricken with paralysis which greatly reduced his energy and abilities. He died at age 87 on June 19, 1896, at the home of his son Israel in South Bristol, New York.

      Powell's obit as it appeared in the Rochester Democratic-Chronicle a few days following his death.

Shotwell Powell's Naples Record obituary from June 1896.

   The funeral of Shotwell Powell was held at his South Bristol home on the Monday following his death, and it was reported: "that there was a very large attendance, with neighbors and friends from all country round coming to pay their last tribute to one whom they honored and loved for his beneficent life." Shortly afterward he was buried in the Powell family plot at Rose Ridge cemetery in Naples. Powell's wife Sarah had been buried here several years previously, and their children Thomas, Israel, and Lydia are also buried here.

  As I related in Cyrillo S. Lincoln's article a few days ago, the search for both Lincoln and Powell's gravesite was done under severe time constraints (it was nearly 8 o'clock at night) and I was also dealing with scoping out a rather large cemetery with no clue as to where both were buried! After I found Mr. Lincoln's stone I set my sights on finding Shotwell's stone.....which my father successfully discovered less than fifty feet away from Lincoln!  As I have recently found that both of these oddly named politicians are related by marriage, I now have a good idea as to why both of their plots were located so close to one another.

  Powell's modest gravestone bears the names of all of the members of the Powell family (except Lydia Ann, who is buried elsewhere in Rose Ridge.) This stone also denotes Powell's name with the prefix "Hon." for "Honorable", indicating to anyone even remotely interested in history that someone of importance is buried there. All in all the above photo turned out rather well, considering it was taken at nearly 8:30 at night!

Cyrillo Southworth Lincoln (1830-1900)

                         Cyrillo S. Lincoln,  from Milliken's "A History of Ontario County", published in 1911.

    Following up on yesterday's article on Jefferson County resident Lotus Ingalls, our profile today centers on the life of Cyrillo Southworth Lincoln, a prominent figure in the town of Naples in Ontario County, New York. Mr. Lincoln represented his home county in the New York State Assembly for four terms during the 1870s and was at the time of his death viewed as one of Naples's most honored citizens. Two days ago (August 15, 2012), I was lucky enough to be on vacation near Naples and made a point to locate Lincoln's final resting place in the Rose Ridge Cemetery. Lincoln is honored today (on the 112th anniversary of his death) as the newest addition to the site, and some photographs from Rose Ridge Cemetery will conclude his extensive profile here.

   Cyrillo Southworth Lincoln was born on July 18, 1830, in the village of South Bristol, New York, one of seven children born to Lucius (1801-1875) and Amelia Fellows Lincoln (1806-1876). Cyrillo received his education at both the Genesee Wesleyan and the New York Conference Seminaries and in 1858 graduated with honors from the Union College in New York. Shortly after his graduation he began reading law under Frederick L. Durand of Rochester and was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1859. Lincoln eventually became a law partner with future U.S. Representative (and Naples native) Emory Bemsley Pottle (1815-1891), and together they maintained a law practice in Naples until its dissolution in 1864.

   In 1859 Lincoln married Charlotteville, New York native Mary Abigail Brown, with whom he had one daughter, whose name has been lost to history. Both Mary and her infant daughter died within a year of her marriage to Lincoln, and in August 1862 he remarried to Laura A. Clarke, and this union produced two children, Mary Clark (born 1864) and Spencer Francis (1868-1944). Spencer Lincoln followed in his father's footsteps and also went on to a distinguished career in the public forum, serving as District Attorney for Yates County, New York from 1906-1912 and again from 1925-1933.

          This portrait of Spencer Francis Lincoln appeared in the Penn Yan Democrat in January 1944.

   Throughout the 1860s Cyrillo S. Lincoln maintained a successful law practice out of his home in Naples, and was also involved in that area's grape industry, maintaining "one of the finest vineyards in that section of the State." His expertise in the field of law won Lincoln many friends throughout Ontario County and his 1900 obituary (published in the Naples Record) gives note that "his good influence was also early felt in all matters of public interest and town improvement. He had fine oratorical gifts, speaking readily and convincingly, and was thus brought into frequent service as an entertainer and educator."

   While Lincoln's career in law continued to win him local acclaim, he didn't pursue political office until the mid-1860s, when he was elected as Naples Justice of the Peace, serving in this capacity until 1871. In November of that year, Lincoln was elected to his first term in the New York State Assembly as a Republican, beginning a legislative tenure that was "most creditable to his constituents and to himself." During his four terms in the assembly, Lincoln held a seat on the Committee on the Petitions of Aliens and the sub-Committee on the Whole and later chaired the Committee on Claims during the 1873 assembly session. Lincoln's oratorical skills receive further mention in the 1874 Life Sketches of Government Officials and Members of the Legislature, which notes:

"As a public speaker he has few superiors. With a voice full and sonorous, an easy and natural manner of delivery and clear enunciation, he has no difficulty in securing the attention of the house, whatever the topic of discussion. He talks well on all subjects, and is also a clear and secure reasoner, holding, in the main, sound views on the political, social and financial questions of the day."                    

     During his four terms in the Assembly, Lincoln was remarked to be "a man of acknowledged ability, sound principals, and flexible integrity" and it was this character assessment that eventually led then New York Governor Samuel Tilden to appoint Lincoln (along with future New York Governor David Bennett Hill) as special prosecuting attorneys during the 1872 impeachment trial of New York State Supreme Court justice George Gardner Barnard.  Lincoln's assembly tenure concluded with the end of the May 1875 session and his Naples Record obituary notes that "few men, if any, on the floor of the House exerted more influence or were more honored."

   After his service in state government, Lincoln returned to his Naples law practice and throughout his later years was an active figure in town affairs. For over thirty years he was a member of the local Presbyterian church and is listed by his obituary as being a Sunday school superintendent and church trustee. Lincoln returned to political service in 1880 when he was named as a delegate from New York to the 1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago that nominated James Garfield for President. In 1889 he was named as a trustee for the Naples Union School, serving in this post until 1895. Lincoln was also a charter member of the Nundawaho Lodge of the International Order of Odd-Fellows and was a past president of the Naples Lyceum.

   In 1898 Lincoln's health began to fail due to a "complication of diseases", and while he continued in the practice of law, health concerns continued to plague him for the last two years of his life. In the weeks preceding his death, he suffered a relapse which confined him to his bed, and he died away at his home at 1 p.m. on August 17, 1900, at age 70.

             This death notice for Cyrillo Lincoln appeared in a Gloversville, New York newspaper.

   The death of Cyrillo S. Lincoln was widely reported in a number of New York newspapers and was front-page news in the August 22, 1900 edition of the Naples Record. His obituary mentions that his death "removes from us not only a most genial and lovable man, but one of the most useful and honored citizens of the county, and is not only a personal loss to a great multitude but a public calamity." 

   As one can read from the impressive memorial given to Lincoln in the Record, his demise robbed Naples of one of its most highly regarded public servants. His funeral is recorded as taking place at his home on Monday, August 20, 1900, and his remains were then escorted by a funeral procession to the Rose Ridge Cemetery, where he was then interred. Lincoln was survived by his wife Laura, who died at age 87 in 1918 and was interred next to her husband.

   I fast forward now to August 15, 2012, the day my family and I visited Rose Ridge to seek out Lincoln's gravesite. As a funny backstory to the search that followed, it was nearing 8 o'clock and getting dark rapidly by the time I reached the cemetery, so one can certainly say time wasn't on my side! Compounding this was the fact that I was also searching for another oddly named politician buried here, Shotwell Powell (1808-1896), a past member of the New York State Assembly from Ontario County. 

   After locating two Lincoln plots in the cemetery (neither of which was the Lincoln I was looking for), I was beginning to get worried! It was practically dark by this time and I shouted to my father (who was helping me in the search) that I was going to the far side of the cemetery near a tree-lined area. After a few more minutes of poking around, I located the man I was looking for! Cyrillo Lincoln's gravesite is tucked away in a far corner of this out-of-the-way cemetery, and behind me in the photo below is a wooded area that descends sharply downhill into an even larger woods!

   In the picture above (which turned out remarkably well, considering that it was taken at 8:30 at night) I stand next to Cyrillo's marker, while he and his wife Laura's headstones are directly behind me. 

   Lincoln's headstone is quite hard to read, as 112 years of wear and exposure to the elements have covered it with spots of algae. Directly to the left of Cyrillo's stone is that of his wife Laura, whose stone is in a similar condition. Interred in the two other Lincoln plots I mentioned earlier are the remains of Cyrillo's father and mother and older brothers Linus and Theron. 

   In an intriguing coda to this article, the grave of Shotwell Powell was discovered by my father less than fifty feet away from Cyrillo Lincoln's stone! I find it truly fascinating that we managed to locate both of these oddly named politician's grave sites in so short a period, and I'm certain that a fair bit of serendipity was involved in their discovery! It's even more interesting to note that I discovered Lincoln's grave within 36 hours of the 112th anniversary of his death!! August 15, 2012, will forever be remembered by me as the day that I managed to locate several oddly named political grave sites in two separate counties, including the final resting place of Lotus Ingalls, who was profiled yesterday.