By Jessica Gorman

I really wasn’t sure what or who I was going to write about this week. I usually don’t. Instead, it tends to reveal itself. Being short on time, I decided to jump on FindAGrave.com to look for inspiration and I found it. Lydia Ann Powers. Another name without an obvious connection to Minden. A burial not contained by a family plot.

Lydia Ann Erwin was married to Alanson G. Powers in 1847 in West Baton Rouge Parish. Like last week’s subject, Amelia Von Bokern, they lived in New Orleans. The 1850 U.S. Census reveals that A.G. Powers was an artist.

I’m not sure why Lydia may have been in Minden or if her husband was with her, but we do know that they were not residents of the town. Newspapers reveal she suffered a short but severe illness. At the time, New Orleans was experiencing a yellow fever epidemic. The same epidemic that claimed the lives of several members of the Remer family who had been residents of Minden. It is possible the Powers left to escape it. Or, with so many Minden connections to New Orleans, maybe they were visiting friends.

Probate records reveal that Dr. J.W. Quarles had attended Mrs. Powers during her illness and Rev. Winfrey Scott officiated the burial. I really don’t know much else about her at this point. She was originally from Louisville, Kentucky and both parents were deceased before she came to Louisiana.

Born in New York around 1815, her husband, Alanson G. Powers, was a portrait artist who moved to Louisiana in 1846 and lived in Baton Rouge. There, he met Lydia. They married the following year and in 1848, moved to New Orleans. That year A.G. Powers completed a life-size painting of General Zachary Taylor and his horse, Old Whitey. That painting soon became the subject of a lawsuit filed by A.G. Powers against William Florence.

The painting was hanging in Armory Hall in 1849 when it was sold as part of a previous suit filed by William Florence against Mrs. Arraline Brooks. Powers sought $1300 in damages for loss of the painting which he argued still belonged to him, was only in the hall to be exhibited for a ball held in honor of General Taylor, and had been wrongfully seized to satisfy the suit against Mrs. Brooks. The suit was heard and decided several times before its appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court. The court found in favor of Powers, awarding him the painting and $200 in damages. The painting was later purchased by the City of New Orleans.

In 1853, Lydia died. I haven’t had sufficient time to dig deeper into it yet, but it seems that she must have brought property to the marriage as she left a will leaving her entire estate to her husband and confirming that she had no children and her parents were no longer living. The succession was filed the following spring. By fall, A.G. Powers was in New York bound for Italy. He spent two years there studying painting and developing his skills. Newspapers reported his return to New Orleans in December 1856, noting “since his sojourn in this place several years ago; his life has been chequered with such events, as cast a sadning gloom o’er the strongest heart.”

Powers work was described by the Baton Rouge Weekly Comet. “Mr. Powers possesses all the requisites of a painter. His likenesses are always most faithful; the daguerreotype is not more true to nature than he, and what the daguerreotype fails in accomplishing – giving expression to the features – he succeeds most admirably in doing; his coloring is artistically managed and the grouping of the figures is remarkable for its grace.”

A.G. Powers seems to have resided in New Orleans for another ten years. In 1868, a delegation from St. Louis was visiting the city. Among them was A.G. Powers who had moved there two years prior. He was a member of the St. Louis Academy of Art and was a founding member of the St. Louis Art Society. A.G. Powers died 23 January 1873 in St. Louis. 

(Jessica Gorman is Executive Director of the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, Webster Parish Historian, President of the Minden Cemetery Association, and an avid genealogist.)