"GYPSIES" – now more courteously known as Romani travelers, used to camp briefly in Frenchtown as they wended their way across the countryside.
The word "Gypsy" arises from the misapprehension that these wanderers came from Egypt. But they are no more from Egypt than American Indians are from India. (Although the Romani people did originate in India.) Some of the Romani people are OK with being called "Gypsies" and others aren't. So we'll only use the G-word in quotations and hope for the best.
In August of 1890 the Frenchtown Star mentioned that a band of those folks with horses and wagons were camping along the riverbank on George R. Stryker's property.
In June of 1912, a Romani band got more extensive news coverage when it spent two nights on the east side of town on creekside property belonging to S.B. Niece. The travelers arrived Saturday, and on Sunday many local residents visited the camp. The Star did not approve.
They were a sight to behold. The outfit was a large one, comprising 7 or 8 men, 7 women, many children, 18 head of horses, 6 wagons, a tent, and miscellaneous bunking outfits which they used to sleep on the ground. The women were fortune tellers and the men horse traders, the children foragers after fruit. One of the squaws was evidently hungry, as she walked in J.R. Vansyckel's house, where the supper table was yet standing, and not getting permission to clear it, she grabbed the food therefrom, remarking that she needed it worse than the family did.
These barefoot nomads did their washing on Sunday and hung their clothes on the fences. Tan and red were the prevailing color of people, clothing and wagons.
They were the toughest looking gang of gypsies seen here in many a day as they passed through town on Monday morning, going up Harrison street.
They are a pest to people near whom they stop along the highways, and the general opinion is that they should not be permitted to roam the State.
In April of 1915 a band of Romani travelers overnighted in Frenchtown. Their caravan consisted of 15 wagons and 30 horses and ponies. In August the Star reported: “Several wagon loads of gypsies arrived in town Monday afternoon, and some of the women dressed in the bright colors peculiar to foreign countries alighted and hunted for superstitious people who might want their fortunes told. It is not likely many were found here, as but few believe in spooks or ghosts.”
This band went over to Pennsylvania where four of the men were arrested in Tinicum Township for allegedly stealing watermelons, driving over the farmer's vines and threatening the life of the arresting constable.
Gloria Sipes Paleveda remembers such encampments on the flat in the 1930s, although, unlike the writer (probably her grandfather William Sipes) quoted above, she was thrilled that such people were at large. She wrote about them with wonder, with the parental threat that they might kidnap only adding to her excitement. At age 13, in 1938 she trick-or-treated in a Romani traveler costume.
From "Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia"