Samuel T. Powell, who during his lifetime was prominent in the affairs of Marshall county, is now deceased. He was born in Stanhill, N. Y., January 5, 1842. His parents were Benjamin S. and Gerushia Powell, both natives of the Empire State, where the father was a farmer. Samuel T. received a good education. He attended the public schools of his native town and the college at Fort Edwards, N. Y. After this he recived[sic] a business education, and when a young man entered the employ of a bank as clerk, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. remaining here five years, after which he was connected with the bank at Castleton, N. Y., for two years, and in 1871 came west, locating at Waterville, Marshall county. For several years he was connected with the Marshall County Bank, when he decided to engage in the banking business for himself and established the Bank of Waterville, Waterville, Kan. He conducted this institution until, on account of failing health, he disposed of his banking interests, and later engaged in loaning Eastern capital in Marshall and adjacent counties. This business developed rapidly, and he did a very extensive loan business of this character, and was instrumental in bringing a great deal of Eastern capital into the State, which contributed largely to the upbuilding and rapid development of northern Kansas. The early settlers had to have money to build their homes and improve their farms. Mr. Powell was a careful and trustworthy investor, but as a representative of capital was always lenient with the borrower, and his method of dealing with the worthy unfortunate contributed in many instances to the eventual financial success of many an early settler in Kansas. He was also interested quite extensively in the banking industry in the northern part of the State. He was president of a bank in Cuba, Kan., several years and also president of the Clyde Exchange Bank for seventeen years. His business extended throughout the entire scope of northern Kansas, from Waterville to the Colorado line. Mr. Powell was united in marriage, September 5, 1872, to Miss Sarah E. Griffin, a daughter of Henry H. and Chloe (Fletcher) Griffin, the former a native of Maine and the latter of Massachusetts, both of Scotch descent. Henry H. Griffin was prominent as an educator and lecturer and for a time held a professorship in the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He was an eminent geologist and for years delivered lectures in the principal cities and towns of the country. He came to Kansas in 1871 and for a time was a teacher at Waterville. Mrs. Griffin, Mrs. Powell's mother, was a well educated and highly cultured woman. She was a graduate of Lyons College, Lyons, Mass.

To Mr. and Mrs. Powell were born two children: Ralph L., born November 14, 1873, died at the age of seventeen years; and Charlton B., born November 9, 1878, died at the age of five years. Mrs. Powell was born in Allen's Grove, Wis., and when a child her parents removed to Rose Hill, Ill. She attended the public schools there and at Kewanee, Ill., and had the advantages of her father's private tutoring, and thereby received an excellent education. She is a high type of American womanhood, charitable and solicitous of the welfare of others. She takes an active interest in church work, to which she has devoted a great deal of time and talen.[sic] She has always helped care for the sick and assisted the needy, and during the lifetime of her husband their interests in this work was mutual. She is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which Mr. Powell also held membership and was a liberal contributor to that organization.

Mr. Powell departed this life November 28, 1891, and in his death Marshall county lost one of its most valuable and respected citizens.