Pleasants County, West Virginia Biography of August N. POWERS ************************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: Material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is obtained from the contributor of the file. These pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor. Submitted by Valerie Crook, , April 1999 ************************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 74-75 AUGUST N. POWERS. One of the interesting industries of West Virginia is the St. Marys Pearl Button Company, located in Pleasants County. The superintendent of this industry is August N. Powers, who has had a wide experience in gathering the raw material and in manufacturing pearl button stock, and came to West Virginia from his native state of Indiana. He was born at Rockport, Indiana, August 17, 1887. In the paternal line his ancestry originated in England and settled in old Virginia in Colonial times. His grandfather, Isaac Newton Powers, was born in Virginia in 1833, but spent nearly all his active life as a farmer in Warrick and Spencer counties in Southern Indiana. He served throughout the Civil war on the Union side. He died at Tennyson, Indiana, in 1905. His son, William Powers, was born in Warrick County in 1865, lived during his youth in that and in Spencer County, and then went to Rockport. Indiana, where he married and for many years owned and operated a grist mill and a grocery store. He has lived retired since 1909. In politics he is a democrat. William Powers married Pauline Kline, who was born in New York City in 1869. They have two children, August N. and Elizabeth Hannah. The latter is the wife of Stanley L. Murray, owner of a button factory at Rockport, Indiana, but widely known all over the United States for his breeding kennels, where he breeds full blooded Pointers. August N. Powers was educated at Rockport, attending the high school during the Junior year. He left school in 1906 and for five seasons played professional baseball. He was a star pitcher in the Virginia League, Kansas State League and Blue Grass League. For one year he did work with a surveying crew in Indiana, and then became associated with the Dalton Adding Machine Company in the milling and drill- ing department at Poplar Bluff, Missouri. After a year and a half in the factory he spent another year in Cincinnati for the same firm. Mr. Powers took up the button industry in 1915 with the Harvey Chalmers & Sons Company. He was on the road as purchaser of raw material for this company a year and a half, traveling out of Rockport, Indiana, and covering the principal sources of supply through Southern Illinois. Southern Indiana, Western Kentucky and portions of Tennessee. Following that for six months Mr. Powers conducted a button factory of his own at Rockport, Indiana, and in 1917 came to St. Marys, West Virginia, to accept his post as superin- tendent of the Pearl Button Company. The plant and offices of this company are in the north end of town, along the Balti- more & Ohio Railway. Gathering their raw materials from a large section of country, they manufacture pearl button blanks, which are shipped entirely to button factories at Amsterdam, New York. A valuable by-product is crushed shells for poultry and agricultural lime, and this material is shipped all over the United States. It is a business em- ploying a hundred and ten hands, and is one of the prominent assets of St. Marys industrial prosperity. Mr. Powers votes as a democrat, is a trustee of the Pres- byterian church, is a member of the Independent Order of Foresters at St. Marys, St. Marys Chapter No. 31 of the Eastern Star, and at Rockport, Indiana, has membership in Spencer Lodge No. 112, F. and A. M., Rockport Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Encampment degree and the Rebekahs. He is a member of the Commercial Travelers of Utica, New York, and is first vice president of St. Marys Board of Trade. In 1917, at Rockport, Mr. Powers married Miss Estella Pearl Connor, daughter of Charles C. and Anna (McDaniel) Connor, residents of Rockport, where her father is super- intendent of the Rockport Pearl Button Company. Mr and Mrs. Powers have one daughter, Dorothy Connor, born July 8,1921.