Hannah Jewett Powell was born in Clinton, Maine, on October 6, 1866. She enrolled in a teacher’s course at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. There, in 1893, she became a member of the Beta chapter of Sigma Kappa. The sorority was founded at Colby and its first three chapters, Alpha, Beta and Gamma, were there.
Powell taught at the Plains Primary School and the Oakland Street School in Waterville and was principal of Clinton High School and New Boston High School in New Hampshire.
She enrolled in Tufts Divinity School and was ordained in 1899. Powell had pastorates in South Portland, Livermore, North Jay, South Paris, Sangerville, Machias.
Powell played a role in the sorority’s philanthropy, the Maine Seacoast Mission. She was its first female worker and served seven years with the Mission’s headquarters at Bar Harbor. For a time, she lived at Muscongus (Louds) Island for the summer as a resident pastor.
She wrote of Seacoast Mission in a 1913 Triangle of Sigma Kappa, “The voice of our sisters mingled with the cry of the ocean everywhere calls us from the coast of Maine – Come, let us live together and work together; let us play together and love together, bound to the highest purpose of our common womanhood by a bunch of violets.”
In 1921, she left her post at Cyrus Cole Memorial Universalist Church in South Portland and headed to Sunburst, North Carolina. There she lead the congregation at Inman’s Chapel. According to an article in a 1921 Triangle of Sigma Kappa:
There are practically not women preachers in the South as it generally known, and Miss Powell’s call to this little pastorate among the mountains of NC is attended by circumstances which are somewhat out of the ordinary, everything considered. In the first place it is rather in the nature of coincidence that the seeds of the Universalist faith should have been planted in the settlement in Sunburst by a Maine Missionary, Rev. Q. H. Shinn, who labored there many years ago. Then Rev. J.A. Inland (sic – should be Inman), the preacher who followed with a pastorate covering a long period and whose grave for several years has lain in the churchyard behind the little mountainside church, had a strange vision that a woman would prove the deliverance of the people in the locality. At the time he proclaimed this vision, women preachers were so little known that it was not interpreted to mean that a woman having pastoral charge over them would be its fulfillment.
Over her career she wrote many articles for denominal publications and magazines.
Honored guests at the 50th anniversary of Rev. Powell’s ordination, Morning Sentinel, June 6, 1949
On June 5, 1949, she celebrated the 50th anniversary of her ordination. The festivities took place in the church where she was ordained, the First Universalist Church in Waterville. A classmate from Tufts who was at her ordination took part in the program. Testimonials were presented to her from her former congregations as well as Colby College and Universalist organizations. The Sigma Kappas presented her with a gift. Colby College gave her a copy of the newly published Holy Imperative. It was written by Waterville resident Rev. Dr. Winston King. A group of boys whom she taught at Sunday School early in her career gave a memorial window to the church and four of them were ushers at the service.
In 1951, she celebrated her 85th birthday and it was noted that she was one of the oldest members of Sigma Kappa.
In her retirement, she was active in Sigma Kappa alumnae activities and was the guest speaker at sorority activities. She died on November 17, 1954, at the age of 88.
