Newspaper Reports 6

1878 THE STANLEY GYPSIES

SOMETHI NG ABOUT THEIR WANDERINGS AND SETTLEMENT IN OHIO

The STANLEY tribe of Gypsies who have made their home in Dayton are probably as well known in Cumminsville Hamilton and the whole south-western part of this state as in Dayton.

They are one of the oldest tribes known that were prominent in England more than 200 hundreds years ago and prided their selves then on their antiquity.

OWEN STANLEY the head of the American branch of the family emigrated to this country from Berkshire in 1856 and on his death in Indiana was brought back to Dayton LEVI STANLEY son of Owen and widower of the deceased Queen is the recognized head of the tribe, the Stanley's believe or claim that they were the 1st family of Gypsies to emigrate to this country, there were Gypsies among the earliest English emigrates to this country, but Gypsy history is not trustworthy.

Those tribes of early English emigrants were of Welsh Gypsies and wandered in Canada 50 years ago. The Canadian Gypsies are nomadic tinkers and basket-makers, the Americans are principally horse traders. In the latter occupation the Gypsies seem to have acquired a skill possessed by no other people in civilized life. There seems to be a sympathy existing between half civilized people and the brute creation which culture destroys.

It is most likely true that the Stanley's were the 1st important family to arrive here and brought the 1st properties and became house dwellers especially in Dayton Ohio.

They have purchased 4 or 5 farms a few miles east of Dayton and acquired the old Smith Mansion, this was bought by MRS JEFFERYS of the tribe a short time before her death with the intention of her children occupying it as a residence.

The Stanley tribe pride themselves on being law abiding and tax payers, from Dayton they start out on their fall and winter trading over the west and south and to this place they return in the spring for home work or for tours through the north.

1879 NO EXPENSE SPARED IN GYPSY FUNERALS

At the funeral, Dr. Daniel Berger, recalled that at other gypsy funerals Queen Matilda was one of the most attentive listeners. 'She also had the Bible read to her daily and was frequently found in the act of prayer. She gave other evidences of a devout faith and I have good reason for believing that she died in full hope of eternal life,' Dr. Berger said.

The final parting at the grave was a scene of the most pathetic character,' he continued. 'King Levi Stanley and his people were thoroughly heartbroken and lingered long by the still open grave after the great crowd had begun to melt away. The two younger daughters, Missouri and Matilda, like the children of nature that they were, cast off all restraints of conventionalism and, leaping down into the grave, remained for some time upon the great marble slab which hid their dear ones from them, pouring forth a prolonged torrent of affectionate and tender expression. With much difficulty they were at last persuaded to come up out of the grave. 'An expensive granite monument, surmounted by a statue of the queen, marks the place where her body rests. The monument was cut out of a great granite boulder which Levi found at the entrance to the George W. Smith farm at Lockville, Wayne Twp. The owner made Levi a gift of the boulder.'

Dr. Berger, speaking to the historical society, recalled some of the other gypsy funerals he had conducted. On Palm Sunday in 1877 he held a triple funeral. After a brief illness, Mrs. Amelia Jeffrey died at her farm home just north of Dayton. Her husband, Thomas, who was in perfect health, was so grief-stricken that he simply went to bed and died within two days. The family ordered two expensive caskets and the baby, whose birth was the cause of the mother's death, was laid beside her in the casket.

1879 Aug.1st Mrs. Mary Stanley Smith died at the age of 110 or perhaps even older. She had been born in England and lived there under the reigns of four different sovereigns: The first was George III and the last was Queen Victoria.

'No one who saw this venerable woman in her later years,' wrote Berger, could be disposed to doubt the fact of her extraordinary age, so deeply marked was she in all her lineaments by the hand of the great sculptor Time.

'Funerals among the Stanley gypsies are usually made a kind of state occasion. No expense is spared to give them suitable dignity and make them a proper expression of regard for their dead. The familiar funeral coaches, the undertaker's hearse, a long procession, a rich casket, the greatest profusion of flowers, all form a part of the event.

'The women appear dressed in their best, frequently in silks, satins and velvets, the garment often severely wrinkled from packing away in boxes and trunks. Jewellery in greatest abundance is worn, fingers and hands being adorned with massive gold. The gypsy woman who possesses money does not hesitate to purchase costly things, especially things of ornament, when she has set her heart on them.' Many visitors to Woodland Cemetery seek out the graves of the gypsies with their carvings and expressions of sentiment.

1881 August 22nd -GYPSIES IN EUROPE New York Times USA

FALLACIES ABOUT THEM- WHERE THEY CAME FROM AND THEIR SETTLED COLONIES

The Gypsy is a thorough and irreclaimable vagabond, but he has many good points about him. His notions of honesty especially when fowl or horse is in question do not exactly correspond with our own and he cannot be brought to understand the game laws: but he compares favourably in most of these respects with tramps and beggars and even with the rustic labours and the lower classes in town. The road is literally his walk in life and he practices such trades as tinkering, chair-mending, cutting clothes pegs and the like with the assiduity and industry.

When the weather makes out-door life unbearable the gypsies settle down after a fashion ; those who have covered wagons with the sight of which we are familiar halt with them in some convenient spot and live in small communities, others hire an empty cottage and simply camp down in it, requiring no furniture, but the few articles of bedding and cooking utensils which served them in their tents, but the English Romanies do not affect a town life ; they keep strictly to their old nomad traditions; Kirk Yetholm in Scotland is the only place in the British Isles where a settled colony of gypsies exists for even their haunts in the West of London are deserted as the Summer comes round and the country holds forth its irresistible charms. Elsewhere especially in Turkey and the Danubiau Principalities there are many villages inhabited entirely by Gypsies.

Strange to say these people are very little understood and among other fictions in vogue concerning them the most popular one that they have a King, is totally without foundation. A member of the tribe who has reached an advanced age and become the head of a numerous family of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren is of course visited by them at any spot where he or she may have settled down and as the travels of the clan are regulated by the seasons ,fairs markets and so on the gatherings naturally become periodical and greatly exercise the Gentile mind. Of the curiosity thus excited the Gypsies themselves are not slow to take advantage and the ancient one is dubbed a Gypsy King or Queen for no other purpose than to attract visits and offerings from the Gorgios

Gypsies are not by any means the outcasts of society they lead a roving life because their instincts and traditions all induce them to do so, The sternest laws have been promulgated against them without bringing about the least sign of reform in their habits and they are only now slowly yielding to the influence of the enclosure acts which crowd them out and force them not to become absorbed in the rest of the population, but to seek free space and fresh air in the Far West, since Mr Borrow first told how interesting a race they were with a language traditions and customs of their own differing so entirely from the peasantry among whom they live, many have made them a study and some very amusing and learned works have been written upon their habits and speech ; among the most recent such books those of Hans Brietmann and Dr Bath Smart the best.

The Gypsy Language is very quaint and expressive and although in this country at least they have limited vocabulary left they manage by ingenious compounds to say all they want in it. The origin of the Gypsies is a problem which has never been entirely solved.

The appearance of the Gypsies in Western Europe was in the year 1417 when a band of 800 under the guidance of three shrewd and intelligent leaders asked and obtained from the Emperor Sigimund the Pope and other Sovereigns leave to travel their domains, they gave out that they were immigrants from “ Little Egypt” that they had relapsed from Christianity into heathenism and had been conquered by the King of Hungary,who imposed upon them a penance of 50 years wandering as pilgrims before returning to their native land. It is needless to say that the story had not a word of truth in it, but the name Egyptians has clung to them ever since in this country though they are elsewhere known to Gentiles as Tchingaine Zingari or some modification of the name. They first made an appearance in England about the year 1480 in bands consisting of from 30 to a 100 families travelling in light carts and camping by night wherever a convenient spot presented itself. The women told fortunes pilfered coins from trade-men's counters and drugged baulors( that is poisoned pigs) just as they do at the present day, while the men worked at tinkering basket making and the like and occasionally varied the monotony of their existence by stealing a horse and taking to the highway.

Their lawless nomad life soon brought them under the suspicion of the authorities and they were accused of and punished for their crimes and many others which they never thought of committing.

During the reign of Elizabeth they were persecuted with exceptional rigour and nothing but their persistent nationality and healthy vagrant habits could have saved them from extermination.

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Marla Jones was queen of the Cooper clan of gypsies. Marla died and lay in a vault in Paris, Illinois, for two months. Then the body was brought to Marshall to what now is Pearce Funeral Home. There were more than two thousand people outside of Marshall that attended the funeral. There were two hundred family members in attendance. When they brought the body to Marshall, the police had to clear a path into the funeral home to bring it inside. There the gypsies chose a new queen. Before the queen died she cast a spell over Marshall that said if a tornado would come toward Marshall, it would veer another direction and miss the city. The gypsies put a stone west of Marshall in the shape of an arrowhead, which was supposed to split a tornado to go around Marshall if it happened to come. That was supposed to protect the tomb. The spell didn't work, because the gypsy queen died March 24, 1913, and in 1948, a tornado hit Marshall. It ripped through the top half of the old school building.

Another gypsy queen named Jannette Cooper died when the gypsies were traveling through Marshall. She has no stone; she is buried at the Marshall Cemetery in the northwest part, in front of a big red stone with the name Cooper on it.

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