Albert Ebenezer Powers (1816-1910)
ALBERT EBENEZER POWERS, manufacturer, Lansingburgh, N. Y., and his brother Nathaniel Ball Powers, are the two most notable characters of that suburb of Troy. Their father, William Powers, son of William and Mary T. Powers, farmers, was born in Groton, N. H., Feb. 22, 1790, and after farming and school teaching at home, settled in Lansingburgh, N. Y., in 1812, worked in a meat market, and then taught a public school. In 1817, he started an oil cloth factory in the village, to which a paint and oil business was added in 1825, and later an oil refinery. After his death, June 24, 1852, from an accident, Mrs. Deborah Powers, his wife, succeeded him in business. Mrs. Powers was a remarkable woman. A daughter of Nathaniel and Sarah Ball, she had married her husband in Hebron, N. H., Feb. 22, 1816. In 1852, a partnership was formed as D. Powers & Sons, for a continuance of the family enterprises, the sons being the actual managers. A bank was established in 1877. To the close of her life, Mrs. Powers retained remarkable vigor of mind and her place at the head of D. Powers & Sons. She died, May 28, 1891, at the age of nearly one hundred and one. Albert E. Powers was born in Lansingburgh, Dec. 5, 1816; Nathaniel B., in the same village, July 22, 1822. Albert began life as a farmer for two years in Springfield, Vt., and then returned to Lansingburgh, and went into the manufacture of oil cloth. He was admitted to partnership by his father in 1842, and has since been the actual head of the family enterprises. Nathaniel became a partner in 1847. A large amount of real estate belongs to the two brothers in Lansingburgh, and they are now proprietors of The Ivoroid Manufacturing Co. and The Green Island Foundry, and interested in The Ferris Seeder Co. and a number of farms. No one in Lansingburgh is more interested than Albert in the welfare of the community, and he has served as village trustee and school trustee, and is now a trustee of The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, The Marshall Infirmary and the Unitarian church, all of Troy. To him and his wife, Frances Elizabeth Hanford, whom he married in 1839, have been born William Powers and Esther Anna, wife of Charles H. Dauchy, a merchant of Troy. Having been left a widower, Mr. Powers was married in 1857 to Lucy Clarke Allen, and they have one son, Joseph Allen Powers.
Hall, Henry, ed. America’s Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography. Vol. 2. NY: New York Tribune, 1896. 643-644.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute President Albert E. Powers https://archives.rpi.edu/rensselaer-president-albert-e-powers/
Albert Ebenezer Powers at Oakwood Cemetery https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/86036483/albert-ebenezer-powers