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.”
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| FRANK HOWARD | BANKS WINTER |
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| MANUEL ROMAIN | GEO. GALE |
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| RICHARD J. JOSE | FRANK MORRELL |
| SIX SINGERS. | |
Late in the 60’s at Memphis, Tenn., a butcher with the unminstrel name of Wiets, tiring of dispensing steaks, chops and sundry animal flesh to a ravenous clientele, and with visions of perhaps becoming a future burnt cork impressario, he organized the Great Western Opera Bouffe Company; a painfully short time later it disorganized itself.
It is an odd fact that this gifted performer, whom nature endowed with the ability to portray so faithfully the Southern “darky,” aspired to be a Dutch comedian: indeed, he appeared as such intermittently for several years in the variety houses.
July 29, 1872, at Cincinnati, he made his first appearance with Newcomb’s Minstrels, sitting on the end and doing an act in the olio with Andy McKee and E. M. Hall; a few weeks later he began a brief engagement with Simmons and Slocum’s Minstrels in Philadelphia, commencing August 18.