Alfred H. Powell

Alfred Harrison Powell (March 6, 1781 – August 3, 1831) was a U.S. Representative from Virginia and a prominent lawyer and state legislator in the early nineteenth century. He was born on March 6, 1781, in Loudoun County, Virginia, to Leven Powell and Sarah (née Harrison) Powell, a family of standing in the region. Growing up in the post-Revolutionary era, he came of age as the new nation’s political institutions were taking shape, a context that would frame his later public service at both the state and national levels.

Powell pursued higher education at the College of New Jersey, now known as Princeton University, from which he graduated. Following his collegiate studies, he read law under Charles Simms, a noted attorney in Alexandria, Virginia. Under Simms’s tutelage, Powell completed the traditional legal apprenticeship of the period and was admitted to the bar. His legal training and early professional associations helped establish his reputation and provided a foundation for his subsequent political career.

In 1800, Powell commenced the practice of law in Winchester, Virginia, a growing town in the Shenandoah Valley that would remain the center of his professional and political life. As a practicing attorney, he became a recognized member of the local bar, handling the legal affairs of clients in a region that was increasingly important to Virginia’s commercial and agricultural development. His work as a lawyer brought him into contact with leading figures of the community and facilitated his entry into public office.

Powell’s formal political career began at the state level. He served as a member of the Senate of Virginia from 1812 to 1819, participating in the legislative deliberations of the Commonwealth during the War of 1812 and the subsequent postwar period. In the state senate he would have been involved in matters of internal improvements, state finance, and the evolving political alignments that were reshaping Virginia and the nation. His years in the Virginia Senate established him as an experienced legislator and a representative voice for his region.

Building on his state legislative service, Powell was elected as an Adams Party candidate to the Nineteenth Congress, serving a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1825, to March 3, 1827. As a member of the Adams Party representing Virginia, he aligned himself with the supporters of President John Quincy Adams during a significant period in American political history marked by the transition from the “Era of Good Feelings” to a more clearly defined party system. In Congress, he contributed to the legislative process and participated in the democratic governance of the nation, representing the interests of his Virginia constituents in debates over national policy, economic development, and federal authority.

After his term in Congress, Powell continued to play a role in major constitutional and political questions within Virginia. He served as a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829–1830, a landmark gathering convened to revise the state’s constitution. At this convention, delegates debated representation, suffrage, and the balance of power between eastern and western counties, issues that reflected broader tensions within the Commonwealth. Powell’s participation placed him among the body of leaders seeking to adjust Virginia’s fundamental law to the changing social and political realities of the time.

Alfred Harrison Powell spent his later years in Winchester, where he remained a respected figure in legal and civic affairs. He died on August 3, 1831, in Winchester, Virginia. His career, spanning local legal practice, service in the Virginia Senate, a term in the U.S. House of Representatives, and participation in the Virginia Constitutional Convention, reflected the trajectory of an early nineteenth-century Virginia statesman engaged in both state and national public life.