After admission to the Virginia bar, Powell practiced in Alexandria (then part of the District of Columbia), where he would eventually be elected mayor.
Other members included fellow lawyers Edmund J. Lee and Thomas Swann, as well as Jonah Thompson, Charles Alexander, Jacob Hoffman and John Mandeville.
[2] Possibly after his father's death in 1810, Cuthbert Powell moved to Loudon County where he farmed using enslaved labor.
Possibly his last political task was chairing the committee to greet fellow Whig and former President John Quincy Adams when he visited Leesburg in 1844.
Two of his grandsons who had emigrated to Illinois but returned to Virginia and joined the Confederate States Army died in Manassas, one at each of the battles for that crucial railroad junction.