Friday, December 28, 2007

Gypsies in Yanceyville (1925)

Bank of Yanceyville
(click on photograph for larger image)

The Bee (Danville, Virginia) 24 August 1925 (Page 1)

Gypsies Fail To Find Yanceyville Bankmen Suckers

Tried To Pull Hoodwinking Trick But Cashier Is More Than Match For Wiles

Gypsies have made their reappearance in this section and last Saturday a group of them visited the Bank of Yanceyville where they found Cashier S. M. Bason more than a match for their wiles. One of the swarthy strangers wanted the privilege of "touching" the bank's money to bring it luck, but Mr. Bason having heard of similar "touches" made in Danville not so long ago, told them all that "that Danville stuff" would not go in Yanceyville. Bason sought the authorities but the Gypsies eased out of town on high in their six cylinder cars before they could be detained for the Danville authorities who have an old score to settle with them. The Gypsies presented themselves at the bank windows, seeking to convert bills of various denominations into gold but they got little service at Yanceyville, and Mr. Bason refused to be hypnotized, mesmerized or hood-winkled.

Word that the Gypsies were in Yanceyville was relayed to Danville by telephone and on Saturday afternoon a group of young men who suffered at their hands on a previous visit, gave their cars all the gas they could get through the intake and pursued them, some went to South Boston and others to Milton but it developed that none of the Gypsies at Yanceyville were those who had bad dealings here though they may have been in the same tribe.
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The Bank of Yanceyville Cashier in this article, S. M. Bason, was Samuel Murphy Bason (1894-1986) who would become the long-time (52 years) President of the Bank of Yanceyville. On 18 October 1921 he married Martha Eliza Hatchett (1896-1993) at the Prospect Methodist
Church near Yanceyville, Caswell County, North Carolina. Sam and Miss Marnie had three children, and now rest in the Yanceyville Presbyterian Church cemetery.
Samuel Murphy Bason


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