the builder was reportedly to forfeit $5,000—considered a bad bet by pundits given the latter's reputation for speed. Although she was not quite completed, Anderson attempted to rush Mary Powell into service, and she made her first voyage to Rondout on 12 October, but shortly after was replaced by her predecessor and would not run again until the following year. Mary Powells initial speed reached only , seeming to prove the skeptics correct, but the following year she was declared by her owner to be a faster boat on the Rondout run by an average of 30 minutes. Following the end of the 1861 season, Thomas Powell was sold to the Catskill Steam Transportation Company for the sum of $35,000 () and in 1862, made her debut on the New York City to Catskill route. She would continue on this route until 1864. American Civil War service, 1864 On April 12, 1864, Thomas Powell was chartered at the rate of $300 () per day by the United States Quartermaster Department for service in the American Civil War. She subsequently served as Major-General Benjamin Butler's dispatch boat, and participated in the Bermuda Hundred campaign. The steamer's charter expired on June 9, 1864. Catskill and Troy service, 1864–1877 After the expiration of her USQMD charter, Thomas Powell returned to service with the Catskill Steam Transportation Company and resumed operation on the Catskill route, which she continued until 1872. That year, she was thoroughly overhauled and rebuilt, with her length increased by and staterooms added, her registered tonnage thus increasing to 735. On June 5, 1872, she was purchased by the newly-formed Citizens Steamboat Company and placed on the route between New York City and Troy, New York, as a nightboat, her stablemate in this service being the steamer Sunnyside. In 1875, Sunnyside was sunk by ice and replaced by the steamer Twilight. Thomas Powell and Twilight continued operating on the Troy route until June 15, 1877, when the new steamer Saratoga replaced Thomas Powell, which in turn was retained as a spare boat. In 1878, Thomas Powell was occasionally employed by the company as an excursion steamer, and in 1879, she briefly returned to the Rondout run to replace the steamboat Thomas Cornell, which was in the process of being rebuilt. Scrapping After being laid up for about two years, Thomas Powell was scrapped in 1881 at Port Ewen, New York, "after