Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: July 1981 Volume 19 Number 3, Pages 97–97

A Gypsy Camp in Easttown Township

from Daily Local News: April 25, 1856

Page 97

We have heard a great deal said about Gypsies within the last year or two, but have never set eyes upon them until Wednesday last. Just east of the old "Spring House Tavern" on the Lancaster Pike, a company of these strolling vagrants have made an encampments. They are plainly seen from the railroad, and it was from this point we saw them while passing in the cars. They seem to be some distance from the road, and whether they have asked any permission to occupy the ground where they have pitched their tents is more than we can tell. There were some six or seven rude tents erected, four or five modern dearborns such as our market people use, and then the smoke was curling up from the grand encampment as if savory viands were preparing. The women had been washing as we came along, the bushes near by being covered with clothes which were hung up to dry. There is considerable interest in this people, whose presence in every country is a fact, but whose origin is difficult to determine. They are recent visitors to the United. States, never having appeared here until within two years. Wherever they take up a temporary abode, thefts are committed, not generally in the immediate vicinity of the camp, but several miles distant. In James' celebrated romance of "The Gypsy" nay be found one of the finest characters ever depicted by the pen. He belongs to this wandering race, and a nobler creation is not to be found. They speak the language of the country they inhabit, but have a dialect of their own which they use when conversing with one another. They appear to be Asiatics, having dark complexions and black eyes.