“One of the first things I undertook, in company with Herview, was a representation of the infernal regions after Dante’s description.  Behind a grating I made certain dark grottoes, full of stalactites and stalagmites, with shadowy ghosts and pitchforked figures, all calculated to work on the easily-excited imaginations of a Western audience, as the West then was.  I found it very popular and attractive, but occasionally some countryman would suggest to his fellow spectator that a little motion in the figures would add much to the reality of the show.  After much reflection I concluded to go in among the figures dressed like the Evil One, in a dark robe, with a death’s-head and cross-bones wrought upon it, and with a lobster’s claw for a nose.  I had bought and fixed up an old electrical machine, and connected it with a wire, so that, from a wand in my hand, I could discharge quite a serious shock upon any body venturing too near the grating.  The plan worked admirably, and excited great interest; but I found acting the part of wax-figure two hours every evening in the cold no sinecure, and was put to my wits to devise a figure that could be moved by strings, and which would fill my place.  I succeeded so well that it ended in my inventing a whole series of automata, for which the old wax-figures furnished the materials, in part, and which became so popular and so rewarding, that I was kept seven years at the business, my employer promising me, from time to time, an interest in the business, which he quite forgot to fulfill.  When, at last, I found out the vanity of my expectations, I left him.  He knew I kept no accounts, but he did not know that I reported all the money he gave me to my wife, who did keep our accounts.  He tried to cheat me, but I was able to baffle him through her prudence and method.  For I had married in this interval, and had a wife and children to support.”

Powers was now thirty years old, and had acquired considerable reputation in Cincinnati as an artist.  His abilities coming to the notice of Mr. Nicholas Longworth, of that city, that good genius of young men of talent called on him and offered to buy out the museum and establish him in the business.  The offer was declined with thanks.  Mr. Longworth then proposed to send him to Italy to study his profession, but this, too, being declined, Mr. Longworth urged him to go to Washington and try his fortune with the public men of the country.  To this Powers consented, and, aided by his generous friend, he repaired to the national capital in 1835, and spent two years there.  During this period he modeled busts of Andrew Jackson, J.Q.  Adams, Calhoun, Chief Justice Marshall, Woodbury, Van Buren, and others.  Being unable to secure a model of Webster in Washington, the statesman invited him to go with him to Marshfield for that purpose.  Powers accepted the invitation, and declares that he looks back upon his sojourn there as one of the most delightful portions of his life.