mother ouly, but her motherhood was of that rare type that leaves a grow-
ing impress of good on the life of the son as long as he lives. On the 5th
dav of July, 1845, she had received the boy's promise never to taste intoxi-
cating liquors. On her dying bed she gave him further charge to procure
an education, and do all the good he could in the world. These promises have
been the guide of all his after life; the pledge has been kept sacred, the charge
he has sought and is seeking to meet. At the age of fifteen, he, hardly yet
more than a child, went to California, where he spent a year working in the
mines. When he returned he put into his father's hand .^1,000, as the re-
sult of his year's toil. At the age of seventeen there was a new awakening
within him. He found himself totally unable to write, and able to read
ouly very poorly in the third reader. In his association with men in the
mines of California, many of whom were highly educated and intelligent,
he learned that edin?atioa would be to him worth more than gold. He
accordingly entered the Portland Academy, where, under the direction of
C. S. Kingsley, one of the most competent instructors as also one of the
most useful men of early Portland history, he prepared for college. During
the Indian war of 1855 and 1856, he served five months as a private in Com-
pany C, First Regiment Oregon Mounted Volunteers; three months as First
Lieutenant of Captain W. 8. Buckley's Company of Multnomah county
Rangers, and a short time as Captain of a company of volunteers, raised in
the city of Portland to relieve the Cascades at the time of the great massa-
cre there in 1856. Here he was associated with Lieutenant Phil. Sheridan,
afterwards and now the famous general. Young Powell entered the
Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, from which institution he graduated
with honor in 1861.- Returning to Oregon in the Fall of that year, on the
22d day of December, he was married to Miss Martha Ransom, of Yamhill
county, and went immediately to the Willamette University as a teacher in
the Academic Department. The next year he was elected to the chair of
mathematics in the University, and held that position with honor to him-
self and great benefit to the institution for fourteen years. For one year
he was princii^al of the Tualatin Academy at Forest Grove, and for two
years was President of the Albany Collegiate Institute. While serving in
this capacity he was nominated by the Republican State Convention in 1878
for Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State, and at the election
in June of that year was chosen to that highly honorable position, He
served the cause of education in this office four years, giving the benefit of
his large practical experience and wide observation to it without stint.
During his term, and under his labors, the cause of popular education in
Oregon received an impetus, and was placed on a basis it had never before
attained. At the close of his term in this office he was called to the Presi-
dency of the University of Washington Territory, one of the most honora-
ble and useful educational positions on the coast, which position he now
occupies. Mr. Powell is a man of medium height, but of large, compact
and powerful frame, immense vital powers supply unlimited energy to his
mind, and enable him to do most manly work in a most manly way. At
middle life, much as he has been able to do in the past, more and grander
