PRESERVING HISTORY BILLY POWELL OWNS PLANTATION COTTAGE HE ADMIRED AS A BOY


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s a child growing up in Chester County’s Cabal community, Billy Powell ’75 and his mom would walk to the nearby Broad River to fish.


They’d pass the Osborne house, a cottage-style plantation home near the river bank built in


1853. The family matriarch was fond of Powell’s mother and often invited her inside to chat.


The building’s white exterior and colorful gardens made an impression on the young boy. “I started paying attention to the place,” said Powell, 85.


Decades later, Powell stands on the back porch of the Osborne home, which he now owns, surveying the property’s more than 300 acres upon which he raises produce, chicken and cattle.


“I had no idea I would ever own this place, but I wanted someone to take care of it,” said Powell.


He bought the house in 2001, when one of the last members of the Osborne/Dickson family offered him first rights to purchase it. Powell and his wife, Mae Oria, have since worked to restore and preserve the home, and, in the process, the Cabal community’s place in history.


The Powells have opened the home’s doors to the public, bringing visitors to see remnants of what was once a flourishing plantation consisting of thousands of acres tended by slaves, with its own grist mill and rock quarry.


York Mayor Eddie Lee ’83 has known the Powell family for decades. “Billy Powell’s ancestors and my father’s ancestors both farmed the fertile soil of West Chester County,” said Lee, a Winthrop history professor. “They both knew the value of hard work, love of church and family, a good education and preserving the memories of the past. Throughout his long life, Billy Powell has demonstrated his commitment to all of those.”


By the time Powell, a descendant of slaves and son of a sharecropper, was born, he knew the Osborne/Dickson families as neighbors. Powell spent a lot of time at the house helping with chores and learning how to fix cars and small engines from Osborne Dickson, a World War II veteran and master mechanic.


THE VALUE OF CHURCH, FAMILY, COMMUNITY AND EDUCATION


Powell’s self-published memoirs of growing up in the Cabal community, entitled “Our Red Hills, Our Red Gullies and Me,” provides a glimpse into his family’s experiences. His story is about a man who overcame many obstacles but succeeded through the value he placed on church, family, community and education.


Powell’s father, Will Powell, died when Billy was 4, and his mother struggled to make ends meet for her 10 children, three of whom died in early childhood. The family couldn’t


The Osborne House, a cottage-style plantation home near the Broad River in the Cabal community in Chester County, was built around 1853. Billy Powell acquired the property from the last living Osborne family members in 2001.


afford the mortgage payments and lost the farm, farming equipment and animals. Powell, his mother and sisters remained in the area in an unfinished house owned by his uncle.


His mother, Elmira “Mollie” Barnes Powell, could neither


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