FREDERICK DUNGLISON POWER
POWER, FREDERICK DUNGLISON, D.D., pastor, preacher and chaplain by acclaim of the forty-seventh Congress, was born in Yorktown, Virginia, January 23, 1851. His father, Doctor Robert Henry Power, was a physician of high standing, and was a member of the house and of the senate of his state. In his son's estimation he was characterized by "firmness, sympathy, breadth, conscientiousness and devotion to God and church, country and home." Benjamin Franklin and Lucretia Mott were kinspeople of his mother. Her father, Colonel Jencks, was an officer in the War of 1812. She was a teacher, having been one of the early graduates of Mrs. Willard's famous school at Troy, New York. Her son felt her influence in his moral and spiritual life. A studious and ambitious boy, he was reared on the farm, learning from his laborious life independence, self-reliance and love of nature. He recalls the first battle of the Civil war at Big Bethel, and the encounter of the Merrimac and Monitor in Hampton Roads, and he has vivid recollection of the siege of Yorktown and the battle of Williamsburg, which were near his home.
He entered Bethany college, West Virginia, when seventeen and was graduated at twenty, in 1871, his diploma bearing the name of James A. Garfield, a trustee of the institution. He later received from his alma mater the honorary degree of LL.D. He was ordained to the ministry in 1871, and took charge of three country churches in East Virginia.
Doctor Power was married March 17, 1874, to Miss Emily Brown Alsop, of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The same year he accepted the professorship of ancient languages in Bethany college. In September, 1875, he became pastor of the Christian church on Vermont avenue, Washington, District of Columbia, of which he is still pastor in 1906. At that time this church enrolled but one hundred and fifty members. General Garfield was then in congress and a member of the church, as was also Judge Jeremiah S. Black, ex-attorney-general of the United States, and secretary of state, 1860-61. When Gar-
