4. William and Alice Powell

By Zula Powell Bondurant

Family legend has the Powell brothers coming to Virginia from Scotland in the early eighteenth century. Later, one brother, his name may have been Robert, moved north towards New York and Pennsylvania. He eventually traveled west to California. The other brother, John, arrived in Virginia where he married Nancy Mason. John (Jackie) Johnson and John Powell were first cousins. They came together from Virginia to Shelby County, KY. In 1815, together with John Powell's wife, Nancy and infant daughter, Mary, they settled in Meade County. John Powell took up about 1,000 acres of land on the east side of Doe Run Creek where he built a cloth factory run by water power. It was one of the leading cloth factories of that day. Doe Run Creek furnished the power to turn the Johnson Mill into a flourishing business. Later, three grain mills were established along its banks. 

John and Nancy Powell had a son William Powell who married Anne Greene, daughter of Jesse Green and Rebecca Vanmeter. Their son William Alfred Powell was born on September 29, 1855 in Indiana, where the young couple had gone to live. Alfred, as he came to be called, was carried as a baby in his mother's arms across the Ohio River to the Powell home in Kentucky. The couple walked across ice of the frozen river to Rock Haven Landing where the river was less than a mile wide. Their belongings followed and Alfred's childhood was spent at the home on the brink of the high hill above the small town of Rock Haven. This farm adjoins land that is Woodspoint where the Dow family lived in 1800's.

As a boy, Alfred fished the river, rowed small boats and knew about the big steamboats that loaded produce and passengers at Rock Haven Landing. An excellent swimmer, he thought nothing of swimming across the Ohio River. On Sunday afternoons young people, including Alfred, gathered in Froman Hollow for socializing. His horseback riding skills were legendary. Of major importance to him was the care of horses he rode; he rode at a fast speed sometimes, but never enough to hurt the horse. 

Alfred's siblings were Elizabeth, Jo Ann, Rebecca and Jess. Alfred had an awareness of his place in history and often spoke of the Boone Family Cemetery on Enoch Boones's farm near Rock Haven. He told of Squire Boone, Daniel's brother, having lived in the area.

Growing up during the years of the Civil War, he heard of the terrorist attacks by guerilla bands, called the Black Flag, in the community. Alfred was ten years old when the teenaged Sue Mundy was captured near Guston after the "Morning Star" had landed Union troops at Brandenburg. Fifty soldiers surrounded the barn on the James Cox farm where young Mundy was found. After a mock trial he was taken on the "Morning Star" to Louisville to be executed as "an example." The event was complete with bands playing music. On another day, two young soldiers were captured and shot just up the hill from Dr. Pusey's house in Garnettsville. The shots could be heard at Alfred's home. (Jack Scott's great-grandmother was at the Pusey home for eye treatment when this occurred; she and Mrs. Pusey gave the youthful captives a drink of water at the well and quietly asked their parents' names and addresses. After the execution, Mrs. Pusey had a manservant take the bodies to their families.)

On the night before General John Hunt Morgan made his raid into the North, he and his troops camped by Otter Ceek at Garnettsville. Their singing could be heard at Alfred's home, and it stirred mixed emotions for the boy. He had uncles fighting for the North and another uncle in the conflict on the Southern side. Aware of his family's dislike for "Old Abe" Lincoln (who had lived in the next county when he was a boy) Alfred had few positive statements to make about the sixteenth president, a view shared by most residents of Meade County during that era. Alfred maintained that negative attitude into his latter years.

Alfred, handsome as a young man with startling blue eyes and ruddy cheeks, courted a neighbor girl, Alice Ann Dow, eldest child of George and Emily Dow. Alice Ann Dow was born on Woodspoint land, in one of the old log houses, on July 29, 1861. They were married in 1876 when she was 15 and he was 21 years old. The Reverend Judson Willett, pastor of Buck Grove Baptist Church officiated their wedding. Their children were Jasper, Floyd and Lloyd (twins), James Patterson, Hugh who died at age two, Emily Ann and Zula Edna. A baby girl died at birth and and was buried in the Powell Cemetery , as was Hugh. The pink flowering almond planted by Alice Ann still blooms at the head of her grave.

Alfred and Alice Ann lived as newly-weds on rented land in the "river bottoms," then bought the farm we call the "Board Place." Alfred farmed and helped to run the grist mill (on present Highway 1638.) Shortly, they bought a farm on Garnettsville Road later known as the Board Place. They farmed and Alfred worked at the mill on Doe Run near their house. During these years all of their children were born except Zula. Alice Ann enjoyed living there, seeing an occasional traveler go by on the road, and being near neighbors.  Maple trees were planted in the front yard. Alice Ann's health was not good after Zula was born, but she planted roses and bluebells among other flowers. The most distinguishing feature of the layout was the use of rock walls back of the house and into the hillside where the cellar was built attached to the house by a porch. There were also rock fences near the spring and across the creek near the footbridge, all left from the early days when Scots people, who knew the techique of rock and stone construction, taught the slaves.