300 
OBITUARY NOTICES. 
JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 
1834-1902. 
[Read before the Society, May 21, 1904.] 
John Wesley Powell, son of Joseph and Mary (Dean) 
Powell, was born at Mount Morris, New York, March 24, 
1834. His parents were English, and he was the fourth of 
nine children born to them. About 1839 they removed from 
Mount Morris to Jackson, Ohio. Joseph Powell was a li¬ 
censed exhorter of the Methodist Episcopal communion, 
strongly opposed to slavery, and later in life, perhaps chiefly 
moved by the indifference of this church to that question, 
joined the Wesleyan Methodists. The community in which 
the family settled was, on the whole, unfriendly to anti-slavery 
ideas. As a child John was interested in natural history, 
and during his life at Jackson received some instruction in 
the rudiments of science from a Mr. Crookhaven, an enthu¬ 
siastic amateur student of that place, whose laboratory and 
collections were later burned by pro-slavery rowdies. 
In 1846 Joseph Powell bought land in Walworth county, 
Wisconsin, upon which he settled his family, leaving them 
to carry on the farm while he devoted himself entirely to 
preaching. The crops had to be driven 60 miles to market, 
and young John usually attended to this, reading and study¬ 
ing whenever an opportunity or book came in his way, and 
often carrying a book in his wagon box to utilize en route. 
At the age of 16 his desire for an education became so 
strong that his parents permitted him to go to Janesville, 
Wisconsin, where he arranged to work for his board, having 
his school and study hours free. In 1851 his father sold the 
Wisconsin farm and moved to another at Bonus Prairie, 
Boone county, Illinois. In 1852 John turned the care of the 
farm over to his brother, and began studying at home to 
prepare himself for teaching district school, by which he 
