Samuel Powel
Samuel Powel was a colonial and post-revolutionary mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since Philadelphia's mayoral office had been abolished early in the revolutionary period, Powel was the last colonial mayor of the city and the first to serve after the United States gained independence from Great Britain.
Early life and education
Powell was born in Philadelphia, in the Province of Pennsylvania, British America, on October 28, 1738, the son of Samuel Powel and Mary Morris. On August 7, 1769, he married Elizabeth Willing, the daughter of Philadelphia mayor Charles Willing and Ann Shippen, and a sister of Philadelphia mayor and Continental Congressman Thomas Willing, a business partner of Robert Morris.In 1759, he graduated from the College of Philadelphia, later renamed the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation, Powel made a six-year tour of Europe with his friend John Morgan. They spent much of their time studying art treasures. This customary grand tour served as an educational rite of passage. A regular feature of aristocratic education, it served as a means of gaining both exposure and association with the sophistication of Europe.
Career
He served as mayor from 1775 to 1776 and then again from 1789 to 1790. After 1790, the office was abolished under the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776. He was a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate from 1790 to his death in 1793.Powel was an early member of the American Philosophical Society and a trustee of the College of Philadelphia.
Powel House
, at 244 South 3rd Street, is a house museum run by the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks. A Georgian city house built by Charles Stedman in 1765, Powel expanded and embellished it around 1770, with carved woodwork and ornate plaster ceilings.The Powels were friends with George and Martha Washington, and lived next door to them from November 1781 to March 1782, following the Battle of Yorktown. At the end of Washington's presidency, Powel's wife purchased some of the furniture from the President's House in Philadelphia.
The rear parlor was removed from the house in 1921, and is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The ballroom was removed from the house in 1925, and is now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Both rooms have been replicated at the house museum.