From
Rochester and the Post Express; A history of the City of Rochester
from the earliest times; the pioneers and their predecessors, frontier
life in the Genesee country, biographical sketches; with a record
of the Post Express
compiled by John Devoy (1895)
pages 261-2
Daniel W. Powers was born in Batavia, New York. June 14, 1818. His
parents, Asabel and Elizabeth Powell, his wife, were from Vermont
and moved to Western New York among its earliest pioneers. They
died while their son was in his boyhood and he was cared for by
his uncle, working on a farm during his youth. At the age of nineteen
he obtained employment in the hardware store of Ebenezer Watts in
this city, and after passing twelve years in that business began
his career as a banker and broker. On March 1, 1850, he published
in the papers his intention to conduct his exchange business "in
the Eagle block, Rochester, one door west of the Monroe hank in
Buffalo street." How successful he was in his undertaking is
evident to all who know that the site of the office in the Eagle
Hotel block in which he began business is now occupied by his building,
the first and most famous of the great modern commercial structures
erected in Rochester. Except that he has devoted a great deal of
his leisure time to the formation of his art gallery. Mr. Powers
has not allowed anything to divert his attention from his business
and no one familiar with the history of the city would contradict
the statement that his conspicuous success has been fairly won.
Mr. Powers has been elected alderman twice and he has been a member
of commissions which directed the construction of the City Hall
and the elevation of the Central-Hudson railroad tracks. He is president
of the board of trustees of the Rochester City hospital. Mr. Powers
was married in 1855 to Miss Helen M. Craig, daughter of the late
John Craig of Niagara County, and has five children.
