Maryland’s most famous witch: The Blair Witch… on VHS. The Blair Witch Project & The Curse of the Blair Witch, Moving Image Collection, MdHS.

The perilous waters of the Atlantic Ocean condemned Maryland’s first witch. The Charity of London set sail for the New World in 1654 from England with her crew and small group of passengers looking to settle the new colony. Mary Lee was one such passenger, but she never set foot on Maryland’s shores.

Travelers knew that the trip across the ocean was a dangerous endeavor, but this crossing proved particularly hazardous. Choppy seas and violent winds plagued the Charity of London’s journey from the start. An attempt to make land in Bermuda had failed due to crosswinds, “and the Ship grew daily more leaky almost to desperation and the Chiefe Seamen often declared their Resolution of Leaving her if an opportunity offered it Self….”(1) The passengers and crew grew more agitated as the ship weakened and the weather refused to yield. Rumor took hold amongst the crew that a witch had conjured the storms. Father Francis Fitzherbert, a Jesuit traveling to Maryland aboard the Charity, recalled the sailors reasoning that the foul weather “was not on account of the violence of the ship or atmosphere, but the malevolence of witches.”(2)

The sailors decided that Mary Lee was that witch and petitioned the captain to put the woman on trial. The storms delayed the proceedings, so two seamen decided to take matters into their own hands. They seized Lee and searched her body for the Devil’s markings. They found a damning mark—a protruding teat from which the Devil and his familiars could supposedly feed—a well-known sign of witchcraft at the time. She was subsequently hanged and her corpse and belongings dumped overboard. The Charity landed in St. Mary’s City, Maryland worse for wear but in one piece and without a witch.

Accounts of witchcraft, such as the story of Mary Lee, were common in the 17th century. An anti-witch hysteria had recently swept across Europe, and the English crown enacted several statutes criminalizing sorcery. The Devil and black magic were real and present dangers in everyday life, and witches could summon that dark power with the mere mumbling of a curse.

These old world superstitions and religious convictions immigrated with the colonists. Witchcraft left an indelible mark on Maryland’s early court cases and became embedded in local folklore. Maryland never saw witch hunts on the scale of Salem, Massachusetts, but men and women alike were accused and convicted of witchcraft. Sources vary on the exact number of prosecutions, but only about 12 people were brought to trial over a hundred year period, compared to 19 executed in Salem in 1692 alone.

Text from Violl’s trial documents. Notice that she was “seduced by the devill wickedly & diabolically….” “Witchcraft, trials for, in Maryland. [manuscript] : Document, 1702/3 1712,” MS 2018, MdHS. (Click to enlarge.)

Accusations of witchcraft often arose from town disputes. These cases typically unfolded in the same manner. An argument would erupt between neighbors, and shortly thereafter one of the begrudged would fall mysteriously ill or his or her chickens would be suspiciously killed one night. Such is the story of the last witch ever tried in Maryland—Virtue Violl of Talbot County. Violl found herself on trial in 1715 in Annapolis after a quarrel with a fellow spinster, Elinor Moore. Moore accused Violl of cursing her tongue, which rendered her unable to speak. The jury however was not convinced of her guilt and acquitted her of all charges. Falsely accused witches were not without recompense. They could sue for defamation of character, and a few were awarded damages, which was often a few hundred pounds of tobacco.

Moll Dyer Rock, not dated. (not part of MdHS collection)

While few witches met their untimely end in Maryland, local folklore is rife with legends of evil sorceresses and superstitious antidotes for bewitchments. Glass bottles containing sharp objects, such as pins, and urine were buried under the entrance of a home to prevent a witch from entering the property or cursing its inhabitants. These so-called witch bottles have been unearthed in archaeological digs across the state. The urine “was the most important ingredient in witch bottles, as it is the agent with which the spell is turned back upon the witch.”(4) They were also buried upside down to reverse the black magic. Another trick to keep witches at bay was to place a broomstick across the threshold of a home’s entrance. A witch supposedly could not exit the dwelling without counting the broom’s bristles, thus revealing his or her identity.

Many tales of witches have surfaced over the years. Each county seems to have its own wicked woman who tortured the innocent townspeople and met a gruesome death for it. The legend of Moll Dyer out of Leonardtown in St. Mary’s County has endured the centuries. The details of Dyer’s story have changed and been embellished over time, but all accounts agree that in February of 1697 she was chased from her home by torch-bearing townsfolk. She fled into the woods where she froze to death after cursing the town. Dyer died kneeling upon a rock, which still bears the imprint of her hands and knees and can be viewed in front of Leondardtown’s circuit courthouse.

The dreaded book on display at MdHS. “The Blair Witch Cult,” blairwitch.com

No story about witchcraft in Maryland would be complete without mentioning the Blair Witch. The Blair Witch, Elly Kedward, terrorized the town of Blair, now Burkittsville, during the late 1700’s and was executed for her crimes. The following year, her accusers as well as many of the town’s children disappeared without explanation, and as a result the town was abandoned. Other weird happenings continue to plague the area and are attributed to the restless spirit of Kedward. The frightening occurrences culminated with the disappearance of three student filmmakers who visited the town to investigate the haunting. The footage found from their exploit was released as the film, The Blair Witch Project.

The legend of Kedward and the associated murders was, of course, pure fabrication. The Blair Witch Project holds a special place in our hearts here at the library, because of a connection, albeit false, to our collection. The film claimed that The Blair Witch Cult, a book published in 1809 which recounted the tale of the town doomed by Kedward’s curse, was held at MdHS and even featured in a exhibit. The movie’s website points out that the book was returned to private hands before the film was released but that didn’t stop curious moviegoers from inquiring about the dreaded book. Our wonderful reference librarian, Francis O’Neill,  fielded phone calls about the fictitious tome from all over the country and even from as far away as Belarus for many years after the movie came out. Each time, he would kindly and dutifully explain that book was entirely made up for the movie and never resided in our library. The movie itself is now a part of our growing Maryland-related film collection, along the films of John Waters and other local filmmakers. But please for Mr. O’Neill’s sanity, please don’t call about the Blair Witch! (Lara Westwood)

 Sources and Further Reading:

(1):Alison Games, Witchcraft in Early North America (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010) 133.

(2): William H. Cooke, “The Maryland Witch Trials.”

(3): Francis Neal Parke, “Witchcraft in Maryland,” Maryland Historical Magazine 31 (1936):283.

(4):Rebecca Morehouse, “Witch Bottle.”

“Witchcraft, trials for, in Maryland. [manuscript] : Document, 1702/3 1712,”  MS 2018, MdHS.

One of Maryland’s most famous ice cream brands: Hendlers Creamery. Moses Advertising: Hendlers sign, Hughes Studio, 1955, PP30-225F-55, MdHS.

July in Maryland can be truly miserable. The temperature sizzles at over 100 degrees for days on end. Humidity weighs down the most ardent of breezes. Luckily for the sweaty masses, July is also National Ice Cream Month. So in honor of the vaunted occasion, here’s the scoop on the history of the frosty treat in Maryland.

Ice cream has always been a favorite summertime treat for Marylanders. Ice cream companies grew out of dairy businesses located across the state, and the country’s first ice cream factory was opened in Baltimore in 1851 by Jacob Fussell.

Fussell peddled dairy products in the city, but often found himself left with a surplus of cream.  Instead of letting the leftovers go to waste, he decided to make ice cream with it. He began to sell ice cream for 25 cents per quart, and Baltimoreans gobbled up his decadent yet inexpensive product. Ever the enterprising businessman, Fussell’s success inspired him to produce the sweet stuff on a commercial level. He founded the very first production facility at the intersection of Hillen and Exeter Streets in Baltimore and Maryland’s ice cream industry was born.*

One of Maryland’s most famous ice cream scions, Lionel Manuel Hendler, seized upon a similar opportunity when he founded Hendler Creamery Company in Baltimore. Hendler learned the dairy business from his father Isaac by working at the family-owned dairy store in East Baltimore, where he saw firsthand the popularity of ice cream. In 1905, at the young age of twenty, he decided to go into the ice cream business on his own and teamed with Louis Miller. The partners made the ice cream in the basement of Miller’s home and sold it to local stores. The product was a hit, and they soon moved production out of Miller’s house to a larger facility on Lloyd Street in East Baltimore. The business relationship between Hendler and Miller eventually fizzled, and in 1907, Hendler bought out Miller.

Hendler Creamery Co. building at 1100 East Baltimore Street. American Sugar Refinery, Domino Sugar tank truck, Hughes Company, 1955, PP30-144-51, MdHS.

Under Hendler’s tutelage, the ice cream company quickly outgrew the production capability at the Lloyd Street plant. In 1912, Hendler purchased a grand brick building at 1100 East Baltimore Street to serve as the company’s new headquarters. The Richardsonian Romanesque building, built in 1891, located near Baltimore’s Shot Tower, had many other lives before being converted into an ice cream factory. It had first been home to a powerhouse for the Baltimore City Passenger Railway Company, the oldest streetcar system in the city. When the streetcar company joined with the United Railways and Electric Company, it continued to operate as a powerhouse and trouble station.

The streetcar company eventually sold the building to the American Amusement Company, when the cable and pulley system that operated the streetcars was replaced with electricity. Architect Jackson C. Gott transformed the building into a lavish theater that could seat 2,000 people. The Convention Hall, as it came to be called, ran a variety of entertainments, including exhibitions, vaudeville acts, and theatrical performances. Carl Hagenbeck’s circus performed for a period of time at the Hall, spurring his rival Frank Bostock to bring his own show to the city as well.

The building changed hands several times over the next few years, though it remained a theater, operating under the names the Bijou Theatre, Baltimore Theatre, and the Princess Theatre. Vaudeville, operas, theatrical plays, silent films were all played and performed at the location. Its years as a Yiddish language theater, appealing to East Baltimore’s significant and growing Jewish population, proved the most successful, but even that was short lived. Only the Hendlers Creamery would stay in the building for more than just a few years. In fact, it served as an ice cream production plant until the 1980’s.

From its new headquarters on Baltimore Street, Hendlers ice cream grew into an iconic brand. Horse-drawn wagons delivered the frosty confection for many years until they were replaced by a fleet of trucks. After the switch, some of the horses remained loyal employees. Hendler’s son, Albert, recalled the return of one such horse, “We had sold some of our horses to Western Maryland Dairy. One afternoon in comes one of them pulling a wagon loaded with milk. It had come home. (1)”

Ice cream truck drawn by horse–Hendler Creamery, Hughes Company, 1941, PP30-54226, MdHS

Refrigerated delivery trucks further expanded the business. The trucks could be spotted crisscrossing the state, delivering ice cream to more and more stores. They were emblazoned with the slogans: “The Velvet Kind” and “Take home a brick.” The angelic, little kewpie became the symbol of the brand, and advertisements featured the chubby cherub enjoying a bowl of Hendler’s ice cream. The ice cream was virtually everywhere in Maryland, as it was distributed to over 400 stores at the company’s peak, which kept the production lines humming. The factory ran six days a week with vanilla ice cream being made almost everyday.

Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry were production mainstays, but the creamery dabbled in more exotic flavors as well. Hutzler’s department store sold several varieties, including ginger and peppermint. For the Southern Hotel, Hendlers supplied a tomato sorbet which was served as a side dish rather than dessert. The eggnog ice cream produced each year at Christmastime, which  Hendler made with real rum, was a major hit. The factory also cranked out other holiday-themed products, such as an Independence Day treat made with vanilla, strawberry, and blueberry ice creams and a Mother’s Day cake topped with a silk screen of James McNeill Whistler’s portrait of his mother.

With all of the inventive flavors being churned out at his company, one would have expected Hendler himself to be a great lover of ice cream. But, this wasn’t the case, as his son Albert recounted: “As a child I remember Dad bringing home each day a couple of pints of ice cream of different flavors….Since he wasn’t a big ice cream eater, we’d do the tasting for him, and if a flavor wasn’t up to par we’d let him know in no uncertain terms. Someone was sure to catch hell the next day.(2)”

Hendler’s true passion lay in innovating and improving sanitation in the food production industry. The factory at Baltimore Street was fully automated. He invented and patented several machines that limited human contact with the product and developed one of the first air conditioning systems to keep the building cool. The delivery horses and their stable brought unwanted pests into the factory which forced him to close off the building. This caused the plant to be too hot in the summer, so he devised a system that cooled the place by pushing air through ducts, thus creating rudimentary air conditioning. He also used only tuberculosis-free or pasteurized milk from the earliest days of the business to prevent the passage of bovine tuberculosis through his product, which at the time was an uncommon practice.

Hendler discovered that success has a price when he and his family became a target of criminals. Several extortion attempts were made to scare Hendler out of some of his fortune. On one occasion he received a note which threatened, “We will not try to kidnap you or your son; a few bullets from a passing automobile into your or your son’s car is one way of paying our unsatisfactory business debts. It will also serve as an example in our remaining business matters with our clients in Baltimore and Washington….(3)”

Most of these attempts were thwarted, but in 1932 three men succeeded in kidnapping young Albert. The kidnappers planned to extort $30,000 for his safe return. Hyman Goldfinger, Samuel Max Lipsizt, and Harry Surasky snatched Albert after a school dance at Johns Hopkins University, where he was a junior. Albert was blindfolded and driven to a house in Anne Arundel County, where the kidnappers questioned him about the possibility of securing a ransom for his release. Albert’s noncommittal answers gave the men cause for worry that they would not get any money after all. They began to argue about their next move. Goldfinger suggested that they kill the young man, convinced that their identities had been compromised, but the others didn’t want to escalate the situation. Surasky recalled the event at his trial: “[Goldfinger] insisted at first on choking him and then he took out his gun and wanted to blow his brains out. He already had his gun right near Hendler’s temple.”(4) They eventually decided to free Albert, so they dropped him off at the Hanover Street bridge. They took all the money he had in his pockets, but then reconsidered and gave him back a dollar for cab fare to get home.

Albert returned home shaken but relatively unharmed. He decided against reporting the incident to the police or his family. The kidnappers could have stopped there, but they decided to push their luck once again. Lipstiz sent a note demanding that Hendler send $7,500 to an address in New York City. Hendler agreed to do so but could not wire the cash, because of the Good Friday holiday. A second letter arrived with same stipulation, but the police were already on the case. He was apprehended, which led to arrest of his cohorts, all of which were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences.

These events did not derail the Hendler family or the ice cream business. The Hendler Creamery Company continued to grow, and in 1929, the Borden Company purchased the company. It continued to operate under the Hendlers Creamery name until the late 1960′s. Hendlers, and later Borden’s, ice cream became household staples, known for its thick and creamy texture and wide variety of flavors.

*Some suggest that Fussell actually founded the first ice cream factory in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania. This does not appear to be true, because the York County town did not yet exist when Fussell began his business. He purchased milk from the local dairy farmers, which he had shipped to Baltimore via railroad. Fussell did own some land in the area, but he never built on the site.

Sources and Further Reading:

(1), (2): Albert Hendler and Amalie Ascher, “Ice Cream Days: Even Before Albert Hendler Started Working at the Plant, He Got a Taste of the Business at Home,” Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1981.

(3): Frederick M. Rasmussen, “Exhibit recalls Hendler kidnapping of 1933: Hopkins student and son of Baltimore creamery owner was freed unharmed after a day,” Baltimore Sun, June 20, 2013.

(4): “Suraksy Found Guilty in Hendler Plot,” Baltimore Sun, May 23, 1933.

Mary Bellis, “The History of Streetcars-Cable Cars.”

Edward N. Dodge, ed., “Hendler, L. Manuel,” in Encyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. XXXIII (New York: The American Historical Company, Inc., 1965), 403-405.

Charles Glatfelter, “Seven Valleys ice cream claims melt under scrutiny,” York Daily Record/York Sunday News, August 17, 2012.

Robert K. Headley, Motion Picture Exhibition in Baltimore (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2006), 247-248.

Brennan Jensen, “I Scream, You Scream,” City Paper, April 29, 1998.

Jewish Museum of Maryland, Hendler’s Creamery Collection, MS 147.

Maryland Historical Trust, Hendler Creamery.

Gilbert Sandler, “Hendler’s: The Man, the Legend, the Ice Cream,” in Jewish Baltimore (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 87-89.

Jessie Key Habersham, circa 1910, MdHS, MS 1906.

In 1904, Baltimore was buzzing with scandal – Jessie Key Habersham had disappeared again. This was not the first time that Habersham, the daughter of a Baltimore canned goods broker, had gone missing. The young debutante had once escaped to Europe for several months with family friends, before her father convinced her to return home. But she had never given her family too much cause for worry, always returning home eventually. This time, however, Habersham left behind no trace, and her family was left to worry and wonder for two long years.

Finally, a letter arrived at her childhood home addressed to her father, Alexander Wylly Habersham. The Baltimore belle informed her father that she had run away with a clan of Gypsies. She explained that she had grown weary of society life and longed for the excitement and adventure that her former life of debutante balls and fine mansions could not provide her.(1)

Habersham did not simply join the band of Gypsies, she became “Queen” and matriarch when King Jorgas Michele, the clan’s chief, took her as his wife.(2)  She informed her father that she had fallen in love, and would now spend her life traveling the United States as part of King Jorgas’ caravan of nomads. In a letter to her father, she wrote that, “Where lies most peace in choice between/ A queen of fashion or a Gypsy queen.” Habersham spent over six years wandering the states with her new family.

She had become enamored with the Gypsies’ nomadic lifestyle after a chance encounter with a caravan one day after school. The capricious youth and some friends from her private school in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. decided to go for a stroll when they came upon a nearby Gypsy encampment. The Gypsy women invited them into the camp and dazzled the girls with tales of their travels. Habersham made many more visits to the camp, befriending its inhabitants, until her teachers banned her from returning, worrying about the effect of the Gypsies’ stories on her impressionable mind. They were also concerned with possibility of kidnapping, which the Gypsies often found themselves accused of. The intervention, however, came too late. The group moved on, but Habersham would not soon forget the time spent in their company.

Her fate to enter a life of wandering was sealed on her return voyage from Europe, a year or so prior to her departure. According to an April 5, 1910 Baltimore Sun article, Habersham met a “Hindu,” on the ship who taught her fortune-telling techniques and “interested her in the occult.”

When she joined King Jorgas’s clan, she used these new premonitory skills on the road, predicting the future for paying customers as the clan traveled across the United States. In her role as Queen, she also helped her husband organize the fairs hosted by the group in each new city, promoted the events, and ensured that all of the proper permits were secured. Among the Gypsies, the young woman stood out – in a letter to her father she recounted that “The white-faced society women [came] to her to have their fortunes told and wonder at her pale skin and beauty.”

Habersham seemed to find the life she was hoping for among the Gypsies. She wrote in her diary that there “is more love and truth beneath the canvas of a Romany tent than in any mansion. There is no sham and no hypocrisy here. I love my husband and he loves me. If our very tents are taken from us, we could live under God’s generous skies and we would be happy.” Her words paint a romantic picture of the Romany people’s world. However, life in Maryland for the wandering people was far from easy. They often faced discrimination and persecution when their travels brought them back to the state.

The first accounts of Gypsies in America date back as far as 1580. Before the boom in the African slave trade, they were sent along with other criminals to work the tobacco plantations in the Maryland and Virginia colonies. In lieu of execution, local sheriffs in England, Scotland, and Ireland would round up those convicted of offenses – ranging from vagrancy and petty theft to murder – and send them across the ocean. Queen Elizabeth I passed several anti-vagrancy acts in the late 1500s to quell a rising tide of wanderers, migrants, and beggars. Many Gypsies and other nomads, such as migrant workers, found themselves in violation of these laws and were subsequently impressed into labor. Several records show men and women, identified as Gypsies, embarking at such ports as Greenock, Scotland, and London and Middlesex, England.

Bampfylde Moore Carew, from “The life, voyages and adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew: commonly called, King of the beggars,” 1745, MdHS.

Notorious English mischief-maker, Bampfylde-Moore Carew, was one such Gypsy criminal sent to Maryland for his misdeeds. The King of the Gypsies, as he became known, was exiled in the mid 1700s for the misdemeanor of frightening a Justice’s horse while dressed as a beggar. Carew had been initiated into the Gypsy society as a schoolboy after encountering a group of them at a tavern. He and some friends had taken shelter in the tavern to avoid the wrath of a local headmaster after chasing down a prized deer owned by a Colonel who resided nearby. The deer had ended up dying of exhaustion and several fields were destroyed during the chase. But instead of facing the music, the young men ended up partying all night with their new Gypsy friends, where “flowing cups of October, cyder, &c. went chearfully round, and merry songs and country dances crowned the jovial banquet….” The more booze the boys imbibed, the more enamored they became with their new companions – “in short, so great an air of freedom, mirth, and pleasure, appeared in the faces and gestures of the society, that our youngsters from that time conceived a sudden inclination to enlist into their company….”

Carew rose quickly through the ranks of the motley crew. His crooked prowess scammed many out of money and he gained admiration and infamy for his wily ways. He stole; he begged; he tricked; and, the Gypsies elected him king. His crimes eventually caught up with him though, and after a trial in 1739-40, he was banished to Maryland.

In the young colony, Carew remained true to his troublemaking ways. He reportedly twice escaped sale to Maryland plantation holders. On one occasion, Daniel Dulany, a prominent Maryland lawyer, intended to purchase Carew to work as a gardener, but found him lacking the necessary abilities. Instead of returning to the convict ship, Carew caused a ruckus and escaped into the forest. He traveled north with the help of a tribe of Native Americans, swam the Delaware River, and weaseled his way onto a ship returning to England. On board, he faked a case of small pox to avoid being arrested once again. He pricked his face and hands with a knife and rubbed salt and gunpowder into the wounds to affect the blisters caused by small pox. Though his time in Maryland was short, he apparently enjoyed his stay in the colony, stating that Maryland “not only affords everything which preserves and confirms Health, but also all Things that are charming.”(3)

The veracity of Carew’s tale remains a mystery. While he certainly existed, his legend most likely grew larger than his actual misdeeds, and the “Gypsies” he led may have simply been a group of vagrants, beggars, and thieves. The incorrect terminology reflected views of the Gypsy culture that are still pervasive today – to many, the Gypsies were and continue to be tricksters and low-lifes living off of ill-gotten gains.

Gypsy encampment, circa 1890, MdHS, Hopkins Album.

Newspapers from the late 1800s to the mid-1950s are filled with wild accounts of Gypsies stealing the life savings of nice, old ladies and kidnapping women and children to be slaves. Headlines such as “6 Fighting Gypsies Seized,” “Gypsy Women Snatch $255 from Banks,” and “Stolen by Gypsies” were commonplace. Locations of encampments were frequently publicized to warn people of the Gypsy presence in the area. Letters to the editor and op-ed pieces attested to the evil of the Gypsies. One such article, published by the Sun on February 26, 1931, claimed that “there are many things which make Gypsies undesirable neighbors. They are generally reported to not care much for soap and water. Also they have the reputation of not knowing as much as they should know of the difference between tuum and meum (thine and mine).”

When Jessie Habersham died in a Cincinnati hospital shortly after giving birth to a daughter named Lincka in 1910, similar wild stories arose about her disappearance and family life. The nation was once again enthralled by the Gypsy Queen’s unusual life. Rumors flew about the circumstances of her marriage to King Jorgas Michele. The Oswego Times, out of New York State, ran an article claiming that she had been sold to her husbandfor $900. Her adopted family had held her “under hypnotic influence” and she was “compelled to be the slave and wife” of the Gypsy King. This account appears to be pure fiction. A. W. Habersham told reporters that his departed daughter had gone with her husband out of love, pure and simple.

A Caravan Camp and Dancing Bears, New Market, circa 1890, MdHS, Hopkins Album.

Habersham is only the most famous of Maryland’s sizable Gypsy population. During the 20^th century, the highest concentration of Gypsies was in Baltimore, but encampments were reported across Maryland. Caravans settled under the Hanover Street Bridge or in the neighborhood of Cherry Hill. They also stationed themselves along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad tracks. In 1931, the city passed an ordinance directed at the Romany that required those camped within city limits to pay a fee of $1000 for each entrance. The Federation of Labor had proposed the measure to the City Council on behalf of the local coppersmiths, who claimed that the Gypsy smiths created unfair competition. This was most likely just an excuse to pass the ordinance. The state government had earlier enacted similar anti-Gypsy laws, but the city had no such rules. According to the state law, anyone caught in violation of the anti-Gypsy law not only had to pay a fine or face jail time, but surrender all of their property, including in some cases, that of others traveling with the offender. To encourage enforcement, the arresting sheriff was awarded ten dollars if the entrance fee was paid upon arrest. These laws were challenged as unconstitutional, but they remained on the books until 1976. Gypsies continue to face discrimination into the 21^st century. In 2009, a Gypsy fortuneteller, with help from the ACLU, successfully fought a Montgomery County law that prohibited making a profit from fortune telling.

Despite a history of persecution, Gypsy people continued to travel to Maryland – some even settled here permanently. They blended into the melting pot of nationalities in Baltimore City and spread across the state. In a 1978 interview, Mary Anna Halenski, a Polish immigrant to Baltimore, fondly recalled the diversity of her Fell’s Point neighborhood while growing up during the Great Depression. Among the tiny neighborhood alleys and narrow row-homes, Gypsies lived alongside African-Americans, immigrants from Germany, Poland, and Russia, and other groups. The Gypsies faded into the American landscape just as many other persecuted groups had before them. (Lara Westwood)

*Editor’s Note - In this post we adhere to the common historical usage of the terms Gypsy or Gypsies while acknowledging that the word can be considered pejorative or derogatory. There is no other term that we are aware of that adequately describes the number of different groups that have historically been referred to as “Gypsies.” The terms Roma and Romani, which today are often used in place of the term, describe only one of groups of people historically labeled as “Gypsies.”

Footnotes:

(1)Miss Habersham’s famous pedigree only added to the scandal – she was a relative to many eminent Marylanders, including Francis Scott Key, composer of the “The Star Spangled Banner,” and Roger Brooke Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1836 to 1864, through her paternal grandmother, Jessie Steele. Habersham’s grandfather, Alexander Wylly Habersham, opened a canned goods company in 1865 in Baltimore. He attended the NavalAcademy in Annapolis and rose to the rank of lieutenant before resigning in 1860. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Confederacy and was imprisoned at Fort McHenry for several months. Habersham’s father, also Alexander Wylly Habersham, followed in his father’s footsteps and worked as a canned goods broker.

(2)Several different spellings for the Gypsy King’s name were discovered while researching. Newspaper articles have him as Jorgas, Jorges, Georgas, among others, but Jorgas was used most commonly. Several articles used the last name Mitchell, but this also appears to be an error.

(3)From an account of Carew’s life, “The Life, Voyages, and Adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew,” compiled by Thomas Price.

Sources and Further Reading:

“As to Gypsies,” Baltimore Sun, February 26, 1931.

Callahan, Edward William. List of officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900; comprising a complete register of all present and former commissioned, warranted, and appointed officers of the United States Navy and of the Marine Corps, regula. New York: Haskell House, 1969. (REF V11.U7C2)

Carew, Bampfylde-Moore, and Thomas Price. The life, voyages and adventures of Bampfylde-Moore Carew, commonly called the King of the Beggars: being an impartial account of his life, from his leaving Tiverton School, at the age of fifteen, and entering into a society of gipsies, to his death … :. London: Printed for J. Barker ; 1785. (Rare E 162.L72)

Coldham, Peter. English convicts in colonial America 1617-1775. New Orleans: Polyanthos, 1974. (CS 61 .C63)

Dobson, David. Directory of Scots banished to the American plantations, 1650-1775. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1983. (E184.S3D6)

“Federation of Labor Goes on Record Against Gypsies,” Baltimore Sun, February 26, 1931.

“Gypsy Queen Dies in Childbirth,” Oswego Daily Times, November 14, 1910.

“Gypsies Win First Tilt in Council,” Baltimore Sun, February 25, 1931.

OH 8297.028, Halenski, Mary.

Judge, Arthur. Souvenir of the 7th annual convention of the National canners’ and allied associations, Baltimore, Feb’y 2 to 7, 1914, consisting of original articles and statistical data, illustrating the practical development of the various branches of the canning industry and showing the present magnitude of the business a history of the canning industry by its prominent men. Baltimore: The Canning Trade, 1914.

“Man Challenges Ban On Fortunetelling,” Washington Post, August 17, 2009.

“Md. Gypsy Laws Repeal Supported,” Washington Post, January 29, 1976.

“Mr. Habersham Explains,” Baltimore Sun, April 13, 1910.

“Society Girl a Gypsy,” Baltimore Sun, April 5, 1910.

“‘Queen’s’ Child Coming,” Baltimore Sun, November 15, 1910.

“What Will be the Fate of This Little ‘Transplanted’ Gypsy Princess?“ The Spokesman-Review, December 11, 1910.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/poverty_01.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/england/devon/article_1.shtml

http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring05/scots.cfm

“A Professional Scandal Monger,” 1840-1910, MdHS, Valentine Ephemera, Series Z.

While rummaging through our Valentine’s Day card collection in a search for long forgotten declarations of love and fidelity, an interesting style of valentine came to light. Among the lacy, pastel-toned confections, we discovered a group of amusing but mean-spirited notes, known as vinegar valentines.

Jokesters during the Victorian era sent these less-than-loving valentines to those they felt needed a reminder of their faults. The nasty notes lampooned every sin from drunkenness and sloth to gossip-mongering and husband hunting. They were generally sent anonymously and caused quite an uproar because of their foul content. The New York Times called purchasers of these valentines “hydra-headed monster[s] who gloat over distorted effigies of human nature and cruel cutting things in rhyme.” Postmasters were known to toss the offensive cards. One postal worker mirthfully recounted several fights that took place in his post office after unsuspecting patrons opened their mail on Valentine’s Day only to discover an unkind note. He described one such scuffle between two women in which the ladies “abandon themselves to an embrace which results in a terrible disarrangement of bonnets, eye-glasses, and other feminine toggery, to say nothing of the utter destruction of the three comic Valentines, two chignons, one blue cotton umbrella, and various other articles now not remembered….”

“Fishing for a Wife,” ca.1840-1910, MdHS, Valentine Ephemera, Series Z.

Incidents like this only added to their condemnation. Moralists railed against the uneducated, unwashed masses who purchased such disgusting valentines, when in truth they had pervaded all levels of society. People of all social classes reported both sending and receiving them. It was also widely believed a vinegar valentine caused New Yorker Margaret Craig to take a fatal dose of laudanum after receiving one from a supposed admirer. The veracity of this tragic story was never proven, but it spawned similar rumors and further outraged the anti-vinegar valentine coalition.

Despite the backlash (or maybe because of it), they were quite popular. As one detractor, a “Colonel” Eidolon, so eloquently put it, “comic, indecent, and caricaturing Valentines fly like hail from a wintry sky.” They made up about half the valentine market during their heyday. Their cheap cost and standardized postage allowed upper and lower class pranksters alike to ruin someone’s day.

So, if you just got dumped, blown off, or just plain hate Valentine’s Day, check out these gems from the collection and maybe get a little inspiration for a vinegar valentine to send to a foe of your own. Click the image to enlarge. (Lara Westwood)

Sources:

Adkins, Milton T. “In a Country Post-Office.” Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine 93 (1873):247-251.

Eidolon, Colonel. “Saint Valentine’s Day. Historical and Poetical.” The United States Democratic Review 4 (1855): 68-72.

http://www.brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk

http://www.librarycompany.org

http://www.nytimes.com