Cuthbert Powell
Cuthbert Powell was a Virginia lawyer and Whig politician who served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly and one term in the U.S. representative from Virginia, like his father, former Congressman Leven Powell.
Early and family life
Born in Alexandria, Virginia, to the former Sally Harrison and her husband Leven Powell, a planter and merchant in Loudoun County who had volunteered to fight the British as the American Revolutionary War started and who would also serve in the Virginia House of Delegates and U.S. House of Representatives. Both parents could trace their descent from the First Families of Virginia. The family included several other children, including Burr Powell, whom Cuthbert would succeed in the Virginia senate. He received a private education customary for his class, then studied law.In 1799, he married Catherine Simms, daughter of Col. Charles Simms, who like his father Maj. Powell had served as a Continental Army officer, then returned to become a lawyer in Alexandria. The couple had at least five children, including Charles Leven Powell and Cuthbert Harrison Powell, and Ann Powell Powell, Mary Ellen Powell Adie, Ellen Douglas Powell Gray and Jane Serena Powell Norris.
Career
After admission to the Virginia bar, Powell practiced in Alexandria, where he would eventually be elected mayor. In 1806 he became a member of Alexandria's city council, and served as the city's mayor in 1808–1809. He also joined a company formed in 1808 to build a turnpike into the new federal city across the Potomac River. Other members included fellow lawyers Edmund J. Lee and Thomas Swann, as well as Jonah Thompson, Charles Alexander, Jacob Hoffman and John Mandeville.Possibly after his father's death in 1810, Cuthbert Powell moved to Loudon County where he farmed using enslaved labor. In the 1820 census, he owned 21 enslaved people in Leesburg, the county seat, of which 10 were involved in farming. A decade later, he owned 18 enslaved people. In the final census of his lifetime, Powell owned 29 enslaved people.
In addition to holding various local offices, Powell continued his political career, succeeding his brother Burr Powell in the Senate of Virginia and serving from 1815 until 1819. Powell much later, in 1828, won election to the Virginia House of Delegates, but only served a single term.
Powell was elected as a Whig to the Twenty-seventh Congress. Possibly his last political task was chairing the committee to greet fellow Whig and former President John Quincy Adams when he visited Leesburg in 1844.