For Powers portrait: There’s no place like home

By Kay Bell
Aroostook Historical Museum Curator
    The portrait of Arba Eugene Powers, playwright and actor, which was displayed in the Hall of Fame at the Maine Statehouse in Augusta for 65 years, has arrived at its final destination, the Aroostook Historical and Art Museum, in his hometown of Houlton. Houlton Pioneer Times Photograph/Karen Donato
BACK HOME — Arba Powers is back home in Houlton. For the past 65 years he has been displayed in various places in the Statehouse. Powers was a playwright and actor. He was the son of Cyrus and Eliza Powers, one of Houlton’s prominent families of the 1800s. You can view his portrait at the Aroostook Historical and Art Museum.
    Arba was the son of Cyrus and Eliza Doyle Powers, an only child, born in 1872 into one of Houlton’s most prominent families. At least six of his uncles were lawyers, one of whom, Llewelyn Powers, was Maine’s governor at the time of the Spanish-American War. Another, Frederick Alton Powers, was a Maine Supreme Court Justice. Their homes were part of Houlton’s “millionaire’s row” on Main Street when Houlton, along with Brookline, Mass., was the wealthiest town east of the Mississippi. In addition to their legal professions, their wealth consisted of ownership of vast amounts of wild land.
    Arba, also called Eugene, felt that the Powers family had an oversupply of legal professions and applied his talents to writing plays and acting in them. So far as can be ascertained, he attended Houlton Academy, the only high school in Aroostook County at that time, which in 1900 became Ricker Classical Institute and later developed into Ricker College. He never married and is buried in the Powers lot in Evergreen Cemetery.
Contributed photo
TRIP OF A LIFETIME — Peter Fitzpatrick made a special delivery to the Aroostook Historical and Art Museum recently.
    In a Bangor Daily News article, Wayne Reilly relates that in 1907 the Bangor Opera House presented two plays written and acted in by Powers. They were titled “One Night in June” and the “Diamond Bracelet Robbery”. They were very well received, and he was granted interviews by competing newspapers.
    His almost life-size portrait, painted by Joseph Cummings Chase, shows a quite handsome Walt Disney look-alike sporting a debonair moustache, wearing ebony cuff links and an impressive gold ring.
    As might be expected, his arrival at Houlton’s museum recently was as theatrical as his plays. Because of the portrait’s size it could not be transported by an average passenger vehicle, so Houlton’s Peter Fitzpatrick volunteered his Freightliner tractor-trailer. It was backed up to Maine’s Statehouse, and Arba’s crated portrait was loaded with much curiosity and fanfare,
    Thus, Arba’s final trip was in a vehicle not even invented during his hey day.
    Fitpzatrick’s remark upon safe delivery of his famous passenger was, “He’s quite a guy! Enjoyed the trip and couldn’t believe all the changes in his hometown. I’m glad he’s home.”