GEORGE W. POWERS ran away from home in 1861; there was really no necessity for this, as the home was securely fastened. However, that’s not the argument. He boarded the steamboat “Charley Bowers,” did George Powers, and for several hours continued as a passenger, finally landing at Cairo, Ill., where he immediately sought out the manager, and was at once engaged to do a jig, in black-face; subsequently he was apprenticed to old Frank Howard, with whom he did “nigger acts” in the variety houses of St. Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Louisville and Memphis; at the latter place he appeared in Morningstar’s Varieties; it is now 1863, and all is well. Mr. Powers next joined Castello’s Circus, and late in 1863 made his first appearance in minstrelsy; the honor belongs to the Weed and Morris Company. The following year he was with LaRue’s Minstrels; the next burnt-cork aggregation to claim him was the Morris Bros. in Boston. September 5, 1870, with Hooley’s Minstrels in Brooklyn, Johnson and Powers made their first appearance as a team, doing acrobatic songs and dances and high kicking--this man Johnson was Carroll Johnson, the present Beau Brummell of minstrelsy, but at that time known as James Johnson; for thirteen years did this duo do dances and other doings. January 2, 1871, they opened with Hooley’s Minstrels in Chicago, at the first performance of that company in the Big Lake City. In the Summer of 1872 Mr. Powers and his partner joined the famous San Francisco Minstrels in New York, and continued with them until 1882, barring the season of 1874-75, which was spent in Philadelphia with Carncross and Dixey’s Minstrels. In the Fall of 1882 they became members of Courtright and Hawkins’ Minstrels, also in Philadelphia, and the following January went to San Francisco, where they opened with Billy Emerson’s Minstrels on the 22d; they remained about three months and then joined Haverly’s Minstrels, and in June, 1883, the long partnership of Johnson and Powers was dissolved. Mr. Powers subsequently gave most of his attention to the banjo, on which instrument in the execution of which he has no rival in minstrelsy; his rendition of “Home, Sweet Home,” with variations, is alone worth going miles to hear. From 1885 to 1893 Mr. Powers appeared successfully with McNish, Johnson and Slavin’s; Thatcher, Primrose and West’s; Lew Dockstader’s, and Thatcher and Johnson’s Minstrels. Early in 1910 he married the widow of the late John W. Thompson, of Dallas, Texas. George W. Powers was born in Louisville, Ky., April 3, 1847. LUKE SCHOOLCRAFT was naturally a great performer; born in the South amidst environments that gave him opportunities for noticing the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of the negro character, he imbibed them without being aware of so doing. At the age of five he made his first appearance, playing child parts; two years later he “blacked up” for the first time, in the play of “Masked Faces.” [Illustration: FRANK HOWARD