Duval County FlArchives Biographies.....Powell, William Columbus 1846 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/fl/flfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 June 27, 2010, 2:19 pm Source: See below Author: See below William Columbus Powell While men frequently make a mistake in abandoning a profession for business life and in blindly shifting from one calling to another in a rudderless effort to improve their condition, just as serious an error would frequently be made in following with pertinacity a mapped out career, when the rainbow of promise lights up a by-path. The ability to recognize opportunity and the courage and enterprise to seize it, has in many lives been the most important factor in the achieving of success. True success might have been won along other lines, but history deals not with possibilities, the record is of facts. William Columbus Powell, one of Jacksonville's most prominent citizens, and a man who has been successful in life, practiced law three years before he entered upon the mercantile career in which he was successful. He then became largely interested in handling naval stores, adding to his capital, and is now the president of the Consolidated Land Company of Jacksonville. Mr. Powell is of Welch descent. His ancestors came to America in early colonial times and settled in North Carolina, where his grandfather, Absalom Powell was born in 1789. He was born at Fair Bluff, N. C., November 5, 1846, his parents being Albert Franklin Powell and Narcissa D. (Wooten) Powell. His father was a farmer, and he attended the country schools of Columbus county as a youth, later entering Wake Forest College in North Carolina, which he left, however, one year before he would have graduated. In April, 1864, when a seventeen-year-old boy, he enlisted in a company of mounted infantry commanded by Capt. James Strange, of Fayetteville, in the Second North Carolina battalion, and served until the close of the war. He lived for a time on the farm during the unsettled condition of affairs following immediately after the war, then he taught school in Raleigh for two years, in the meantime reading law under Judge R. H. Battle. He was admitted to the bar in 1872, and practiced his profession during a period of three years. At the end of that time he was attracted to merchandising and was active in the commercial world for about fifteen years. While he had started business in a small way, his capital and investment grew with the years, and when he retired he disposed of a large and prosperous establishment. In 1890 he sold out his business and removed to Savannah, Ga., where he became largely interested in naval stores. For seven years he was president of the Savannah Naval Stores Company, and then for the succeeding five years, was president of the Southern Naval Stores Company. Early in 1903 he removed to Jacksonville, Fla., and became president of the Consolidated Naval Stores Company, which position he held for five years. He is now president of the Consolidated Land Company, of Jacksonville. He is enterprising and progressive, but is a sound, safe business man, one of the active and influential members of the Jacksonville Board of Trade and a director in the Atlantic National Bank. In politics he is a Democrat. He is a member of the First Baptist Church, of Jacksonville, of which he is a deacon. His effort has always been to be open and honest in all his dealings. He suggests economical, upright, honest living on the part of the individual as a good plan for advancing the general interests, and says: "Be temperate in all things and this will give us happy homes." Mr. Powell was first married to Petrona G. Royall, a daughter of Rev. Dr. William Royall, of Wake Forest College, N. C. They had seven children, all of whom are living, as follows: William Royall Powell, Robert Benjamin Powell, Mrs. Annie Powell Seward, Miss Petrona Georgia Powell, Miss Jessie May Powell, Miss Rosa Cleveland Powell, and Lewis Montgomery Powell. Since his residence in Jacksonville, Mr. Powell was married a second time to Nellie T. Myrick, a daughter of Mrs. S. E. Turner, of Jacksonville. Additional Comments: Extracted from: FLORIDA EDITION MAKERS OF AMERICA AN HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL WORK BY AN ABLE CORPS OF WRITERS VOL. II. Published under the patronage of The Florida Historical Society, Jacksonville, Florida ADVISORY BOARD: HON. W. D. BLOXHAM COL. FRANK HARRIS HON. R. W. DAVIS SEN. H. H. MCCREARY HON. F. P. FLEMING W. F. STOVALL C. A. CHOATE, SECRETARY 1909 A. B. CALDWELL ATLANTA, GA. 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