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Ready to be confused? In a recent LOST episode, Jack, the mysterious doctor, awoke to find a tattoo on his arm. That day, people who had been friends of his avoided him or became openly antagonistic towards him. The tattoo read something like "He walks among us, but is not one of us." I may have gotten that wrong, not being a LOST forum-type individual, but I turned to my wife and said, "That could be my family motto." She agreed and smiled (she is SO cute!).

I wrote — several blogs ago — about the different kinds of Travellers — often mistakenly called Gypsies. Among them were the Scottish Travellers. There are very few true Scottish Travellers in the US (compared to the thousands of Irish and English Travellers), and it is extremely rare for them to identify themselves as such. The reason? The term means something entirely different here than it does back home. It isn’t surprising that a word can mean one thing to a Brit and another to an American. Take, for example, fag and faggot. In the UK, those words would bring to mind "cigarette" and "lit stick, used to start a larger fire." Over here they mean… well… you know what they mean.

"Scottish Traveller" means, in the UK, one of the Summer Walkers or Pearl Fishers. They are an nearly extinct people with very little literature written about them. Amazon has a few books of their folktales available. The only book I know of that details their lives, a bit of their history, and their poetry and songs along with classic photos is "Summer Walkers: Travelling People and Pearl Fishers in the Highlands of Scotland." It has been reprinted and is now available via Amazon in the US.

In short, the Summer Walkers (let’s use that name for now), were accepted as a valued part of Scottish society. They left their mark in music and in their general contributions to the larger population. They provided fresh water pearls — white, black, purple, and pink. They served as migrant workers helping the large estates harvest their crops, shear their sheep, shoe their horses, or repair machinery and fences. A great percentage of Scottish folklore originated, or was kept alive, in the Summer Walker community. When war broke out, the Summer Walker men were among the first to stand in line to serve. Because of their low level of education, they were always low ranking infantrymen and, therefore, first to be slaughtered by the incompetence of old style British officers. Thousands were sent "over the top" into the meat grinder of No Man’s Land in World War One. The community never recovered. Some still live around Aberdeen, Montrose, and in the Northwest of Scotland around Culbokie, Ullapool, and Loch Maree. Most are gone — walking.

Many of the walkers travel in and out of the Melungeon community; a group that has welcomed and sheltered these isolated Long Walkers for at least 120 years. Another small community is in the American northeast — and that’s as specific as I will be.

The problem is: there is a group widely known as The Scottish Travellers that has nothing to do with the people I am calling the Summer Walkers. In fact, law enforcement communities often attribute the crimes of the Irish Travellers to the Scottish Travellers and vice versa. The better name for the roving clan of criminals that plague the Midwest, Southern California, and the Southwest is The Terrible Williamsons.

In the 1890’s, Robert Logan Williamson migrated to the US, bringing with him a set of survival skills learned among the Tinkers. Those Tinkers were probably English Travellers (who are related to the Romany), but they certainly weren’t those known in the UK as Scottish Travellers. Regardless, that is how the Williamson clan is known to police in the USA. In the first half of the 1900’s most law enforcement organizations refused to admit the possibility of the existence of the Irish Travellers; crediting all their crimes to the well known Williamsons.

In 1956, the Saturday Evening Post, America’s most respected magazine and the one with the greatest circulation at that time, ran a series of articles on "The Terrible Williamsons." The reporter was John Kobler and his research is still widely read as authoritative. The articles made such a splash that many Williamsons — in and out of the notorious criminal family by that name — changed their names so that their driver’s licenses would not set off alarms if they had to show them to the police. Today, the clan has about 4,000 members. They have advisers who keep track of their scams, travel, marriages, messages, and help them access a special list of lawyers known for helping get them out of jail (usually on bail — and they immediately leave the area, refusing to stay for trial. They’ll change their names if they want to return to that jurisdiction).

Until the 1960’s the clan was centered around Cincinnati, Ohio. Many moved into Florida over the winter months, but Cincy was home. When they were in Florida there was always the danger that they would encounter Irish Travellers and that happened from time to time, usually with violent results. In 1952 there was a famous fight between seven Williamsons and three Irish Travellers that is talked about in the traveling community to this day! Along with Williamson, some in the clan bear the surname MacDonald, McMillan, Reid, Stewart, Keith, Mesker, Gregg, Woods, Collins, Young, West, Ross, James, Varey, Ford, etc. (Interesting sidebar: Varey is a very common first name, and sometimes appearing surname, among the Melungeons) When they die, their tombstones often drop the last name they used all their lives and read, instead, "Williamson."

Their specialty scams were installing bogus (and dangerous) lightning rod systems all over the plains and Midwest, painting barns nationwide with substandard paint or water and lime, or selling cheap imported goods and fabrics while representing them as handmade heirlooms. They have recently added insect extermination, tree trimming, reconditioned autos that have been in floods, lottery ticket swindles, and a dozen more.

Every year in Central Florida, newspapers warn against the coming of the Williamsons. For example, Don Wright quotes the 1991 Orlando Sentinel saying "The Terrible Williamsons are back, and Orange County deputy sheriffs say the traveling clan of gypsies have one interest in central Florida: getting your money." A couple of years later the same paper warned that the Williamsons no longer used their real names; warning people to be cautious and alert to any attempt to sell them something. The Chicago Tribune has run several articles on the clan over the years.

Only one — as far as I know — TV program ever ran devoting itself to the Scottish Travellers. It was the NBC newsmagazine "Monitor" that ran just a few episodes before folding back in 1983. That program revealed over 50 RV parks owned by the Williamsons around the Phoenix area alone. Those serve as a way to launder money, as an anonymous travel stop for the clan, and can be sold and purchased quickly in case circumstances change. As soon as local law enforcement becomes adept at catching them, they move on. Usually, then, the local agency dumps their "gypsy hunters" (reassigning their police and closing down the fraud bureaus) and declares victory. The Williamsons then slip right back in. That has happened time and
again in California.

Want to see their graves? The clan no longer uses it exclusively, but for many years they only buried their dead in the Cincinnati area. Until sometime in the 1970’s they used Spring Grove cemetery in Cincy, but media attention seems to have driven them from there. Now they use the Highland Cemetery in Covington, Kentucky. Many of their graves are still there, well kept, visited often by clan members, adorned with wreaths and flowers that appear in the dead of night.