Here is a Paper Report dated 1890 Salt Lake Utah (which confirms that My family traveled across in 1886)
I was so lucky to be sent this one :
Titled life in a Gypsy Camp
GRP [Ch] ST [NJ] PLC [Fort Lee]
AB [ Camped on the wooded height back of Fort Lee, just across the river from New York City, It is a novel experience while walking along the Palisades to come suddenly upon the white tents and covered wagons. Views from the Palisades magnificent see Hudson for miles up and down, metropolis, sail-flecked waters of the sound, rising slopes of Long Island. On a Sunday place becomes picnic ground fro toilers (workers) from New York. Steamers and ferryboats set down their human freights at the little dock all day. Dancing pavilions, refreshment booths, merry-go-rounds well patronized.
It is natural that lovers should find way to gypsy’s camp, have fortunes told. For rest of week gypsies left pretty much to selves, visit camp Monday and you will find the women washing, dogs and babies rolling on grass, men strolling about grove with short pipes in teeth, eye on horses, men have little to say to strangers, When a boy I knew a Romany named Robert Wells born 1800. I regarded him with admiration, though I thought no doubt he was a rascal, his memory served to introduce me to the Fort Lee gypsies. When they learned I knew old Bob now 90, I was welcomed at once, These Gypsies had been in USA only 4 years The camp consisted of Tenet Buckland [Bucklin] his wife their 5 sons and families in all some group of size 30 persons, with 7 horses dogs a green parrot and excellent road outfit. The youngest son bears name of Plater Buckland probably after his remote ancestor [Plato Buckland] of whom the song relates:
Two Romany fellows were banished afar
Far away over the dark rolling sea
Lasho for robbing
And Plato for fobbing
The purse of a lady as great as could be
And when they came to the far -away land
The land that is over the dark rolling sea
One came to the Halter
But one at the altar
Soon married a lady as fair as could be
Would you like to know who the lady was?
Twas the lady whose purse he had stolen D'ye see?
For the chap had an eye
Black, witch-like and sly
And she followed him over the dark rolling sea.
Buckland is a man of more than ordinary intelligence and talks freely if you win his confidence, I asked if fortune telling is as profitable as before, No he responded with a twinkle , people know too much these days, We are all musicians, we entertain crowds with fiddle, can make $10-20 on a Sunday.
A gypsy can do a little of everything can shoe a horse, doctor a cow, mend a kettle, make baskets, clean a clock, snare birds and rabbits, sell a horse. Men and Women wear good clothes; there's strips of carpet and abundance of bedding in tents, food wholesome, cooking utensils clean, wagons are marvels of strength and convenience. Wagon body widens sufficiently above wheels to admit crossway's of a bunk with springs and mattress. Sleeping compartment in rear, shut off by curtains, forward are seats and lockers surrounding an open space, where in stormy weather a meal can be cooked and eaten in comfort. No people are neater and cleaner in many things than the gypsies.
Always wash table clothes in separate vessels, women careful not to let skirt of dress touch a pan containing food, since it would afterward to be considered unfit for consumption, For months after childbirth the mother is debarred from preparing food, Burial; we bury our dead in a cemetery wherever we happen to be, they are always kind to them. No gypsy would have his dead cremated. Garments of deceased generally burned, family fast, a mother in some instances never eats again the favorite dishes of her son. Religion: You will find gypsies who are Roman Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, Heathens,
Marriage: Intermarriages with non Gypsies do and always will occur while human passions last. But we have our family pride and the Romany whose blood is pure is honored. I had my fortune told before Leaving.
