David M. Powell, born April 13, 1836, in Roxbury, Delaware County, New York, was a pioneering farmer and stock grower in Davison County, South Dakota. He served in the Methodist Episcopal church ministry before moving to South Dakota in 1883. Powell was a member of both the last territorial legislature and the first state legislature of South Dakota. A dedicated Republican, he voted in every presidential election from Lincoln onwards. Powell married four times, with children from each marriage, and remained active in church work throughout his life. He made significant contributions to both his community and state legislature.
David M. Powell had the distinction of being a representative of Davison County in the first state legislature of South Dakota and is also a member of this body at the time of this writing. He is known as one of the progressive and successful farmers and stock growers of said county, where he has maintained his home since 1883, thus being one of the pioneers of this section. He served long and faithfully in the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church and is still active in church work, though not exercising his clerical functions in a specific way. Mr. Powell was born in Roxbury, Delaware County, New York, on the 13th of April, 1836, and is a son of Reuben and Catherine (Gould) Powell, the former of whom was born in the state of New York, to which the family had removed from Connecticut a few months previously, and the latter was a native of Connecticut. Both families are of Welsh and English extraction and both were established in New England in the colonial epoch of our national history. The mother of our subject died when he was but nine months of age, and his father subsequently consummated a second marriage, passing his entire life in the old Empire State, where he followed the vocation of farming. David M. was reared on the home farm and secured his early educational discipline in the common schools of his native town, while later he continued his studies in an academy at Harpersfield, Delaware County, New York, and supplemented this by a course in an academy at Roxbury, that state. Thereafter, he taught for two years in the schools of Halcott, Greene County, and three years at Stone Ridge, Ulster County, New York. In April 1859, after due preliminary preparation, he was ordained to the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church, and thereafter continued uninterruptedly in ministerial labors until the spring of 1883, when he came to what is now the state of South Dakota and purchased three hundred and twenty acres of deeded land in Davison County, where he has ever since maintained his home. He has made the best of permanent improvements on his farm and has been successful in his operations as an agriculturist and stock grower, notwithstanding the serious obstacles which he was compelled to encounter in connection with the transformation of virgin prairies to a condition of fruitfulness in the production of crops for the support of man and beast. He may well look with naught of regret on the toils and privations of the pioneer days, in view of the success which has come to him individually and the magnificent civilization which has been established in the great domain of the sovereign commonwealth of which he was an early settler. Mr. Powell became a subscriber to Horace Greeley’s Tribune in 1854 and was not a voter at the time of the inception of the Republican party, being thus unable to exercise his franchise in support of its first presidential candidate, General John C. Fremont, but he voted for Lincoln in 1860 and has ever since been staunchly arrayed in support of the “grand old party,” for whose every succeeding presidential candidate he has voted. In the autumn of 1888, he was elected a member of the last territorial legislature of the territory of Dakota, and in the ensuing general assembly did effective service in the framing of wise legislation for the new commonwealth. He was again elected to represent his district in the first state legislature, in the election of November 1889, thus being a member of the first state general assembly. His interest in the work of the Methodist Episcopal church continues to be of fervent and practical order, and his services are in demand not infrequently as a clergyman, his membership in the church dating back to the time when he was but sixteen years of age.
On the 4th of February 1864, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Powell to Miss Ada Elvira Sherwood, who was born in Liberty, Sullivan County, New York, on the 4th of February 1838, so that the marriage was celebrated on her birthday anniversary. The result of this marriage was one son, Arthur S., who was born January 12, 1865, but who was summoned into eternal life on November 2, 1886. Mrs. Ada Powell died on September 6, 1870, and on the 24th of October 1871, Mr. Powell married Adaline Annette Sherwood, a sister of his first wife, and to this union also was born a son, Jason Gould, the date of his nativity being November 24, 1873. He is engaged in farming and resides in Sanborn County, South Dakota. Mrs. Adaline Powell died on January 28, 1877, of quick consumption, and on May 4, 1878, the subject was married to Adelia Davidson, of Rockland, Sullivan County, New York, and to them was born a daughter, Elvira. Mrs. Adelia Powell was stricken with peritonitis and after an illness of but four days passed away on April 8, 1882. On the 4th of December 1883, Mr. Powell was united in marriage to Virginia E. Crary, of Roxbury, Delaware County, New York.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.