James Edwin Powell II

June 30, 1850 – June 29, 1929

This Maine veteran was “hands down” the youngest of all Pine Tree Staters to have done service or become embroiled in the Civil War, being at the time age ten. However, he accompanied his father during the elder Powell’s service during the Mexican War, at age five!

Enough ancestral data and eventual legendary fragments have survived via family tradition, oral and written, to sketch in a fairly credible background for our Jimmy Powell. Today, some three or four generations since are in basic agreement about the James E. Powells I and II.

To tell a complete story, a little background regarding his father, James I, needs to be given.

Born in 1806, James E. Powell was first married in 1833 to Fannie Nickerson, 20, who was born in 1813 in England. Where they lived we have only a clue, for tragedy befell this couple: Fannie and their several children were killed by Indians and their log cabin burned. Returning home from a scouting mission, James found his family slaughtered.

Perhaps to attempt to refocus his life and thus somewhat assuage his grief, James enlisted Aug. 4, 1847, to be a private in Company A, Ninth U.S. Infantry, during the Mexican War. So well did he adapt to the discipline and strictures of combat, with instances of exemplary bravery noted, that within a year or by Aug. 28, 1848, he was made a sergeant.

James returned to a civilian life and chose to try himself once more as a family man, if the opportunity presented itself. He settled in the hinterlands of Somerset County, Maine, on the upper reaches of the Kennebec River near its confluence with the Dead River, some fifty miles north of Skowhegan.

As a war veteran he acquired acreage mainly just by living there at “Hangtown,” a section of the remote hamlet known as The Forks Plantation. Here he met and courted a Canadian lady, Mary Ann Hunter (1832-1900), daughter of Frank and Fannie Nicholson Hunter. They were married at The Forks Sept. 9, 1849, by William Hanson, J.P. Their children were James Edwin II, Winfield Scott (Oct. 3, 1853-Sept. 20, 1917), and Albert Tracy (Oct. 3, 1855-Nov. 29, 1869), all born at home in The Forks Plantation,

It was not an easy life-money was scarce; luxuries, few. But on June 7, 1855, word came of his appointment as 2nd lieutenant in the Regular Army. Given that the home life was proving a struggle and fell short of ideal, within seven weeks he left his fireside-left it “for good,” although at the time, this probably was not his intention.

That July, Lt. Powell-taking little James, just five years old, and leaving Winfield (18 mos.) with Mary Ann and their yet unborn Albert-reported for duty. While this “move” guaranteed steady income, it effectually broke them up (physically and emotionally) as a family.

The precise itinerary of the James E. Powells, upon their departure from Maine, though unknown today, rather soon took them west to duty stations in Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas and Indian Territory. The boy’s daily routine, not always predictable, was overshadowed by his father’s career moves from time to time, temporary camps, scouting missions, living at frontier forts. James made 1st lieutenant on Dec. 8, 1856. Jimmy, nearly 10, and his father, 53, were in Texas when on Sept. 3, 1860, Mary Ann was granted her divorce in the fall term of the Supreme Judicial Court at Norridgewock, Maine, her plea being that her husband had left without making any provision for her and the two younger children.

Continued in Part 2

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