Alameda County Biographies

Howell A. Powell

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


 
        Howell A. Powell, conducting a law office in San Francisco, through 
which passes a great deal of the most important litigation heard in the courts 
of the state, is a descendant of a Welsh family of Breconshire, and his father 
was among the earliest settlers in Sutter county, California. There the subject 
of this review was reared, acquiring his early education in the public schools. 
He later entered the State Normal School at San Francisco and after his 
graduation in 1867 became principal of the Brooklyn grammar school of Alameda 
county.  In 1868 he took a special course in law in the office of Judge 
Blatchley in San Francisco and in 1870 was admitted to the bar of California. In 
the same year he established an office in San Francisco, where he has since 
engaged in general practice. He has been employed in a number of noted civil 
cases for the state and has successfully completed the settlement of a number of 
large and complicated estates in probation. He served as attorney of the city of 
Oakland in the water front litigation with the Southern Pacific Railroad and by 
his able handling of this case won added prominence as a strong, forceful and 
able lawyer. In 1889 Mr. Powell was made a member of the board of freeholders, 
which framed the Oakland city charter, and he was the author of that provision 
which makes it compulsory upon the city council to grant franchises within 
certain territory contiguous to the water front to any railroad company that may 
seek to enter the city.
        In 1876 Mr. Powell married Miss Mary E. King, and they have four 
children, Eva, Helen, Alvin and Stanley. Mr. Powell gives his political 
allegiance to the republican party and has been at all times active and 
prominent in public affairs. He is an ex-member of the Oakland board of 
education and in 1896 served as a McKinley elector, representing the third 
congressional district, having received for this office the highest vote of his 
party in thirteen counties. In all official, social and professional relations 
he has held steadily to high ideals, and he commands and holds the confidence 
and regard of all who are in any way associated with him.
 
Past & Present of Alameda County, California � Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 
1914, p. 285