Meet the “terrible Williamsons”. To join them, you had to marry the family

Rochester-Davina McDonald held an Italian woven carpet that he had just sold to a photographer, smiling for a picture.

Only when he left, the photographer from New York realized that the carpet was made by cars-that had been deceived by a member of a familiar family.

McDonald’s photograph is the only one that depicts the “terrible Williamsons” in action, according to the post -Buletin reporting.

A group of about 100 years, the terrible Williamsons has traveled in the United States since the early 1900s, throwing and deceiving anyone who will pay them for their services. To join them, you had to marry the family.

The family landed La Rochester in the 1950s, and many members remained in the city a few years later.

“If we find them here, they have a lot of problems,” said Rochester Police, James Macken Jr.

Traveling in small groups, they would go with the doors to sell false Italian carpets, Scottish wool, Irish laces, lightning rods and cheap paint jobs.

In 1956, Better Business Bureau estimated that the family spun at least $ 1 million, which is nearly $ 11.8 million in 2025, every year since its operation.

In 1956, The Post Bulletin reported that a local farmer, who wanted to show thanks to his owner after having an abundant harvest, employed Williamsons to paint his barn.

After all, they offered him an unbeatable business – a faster job at half the price.

The night after the terrible Williamsons finished painting the barn, it rained. The farmer woke up to discover that the paint had drained on the ground. Subsequently, law enforcement learned that the paint was a classic Williamson combination: a mixture of gas, turpentine, old axle fat and “anything else that was cheap,” the Bulletin said.

Not only that the wood now soaked from the farmer’s barn was harder to paint, but it was a higher fire danger.

The terrible Williamsons were well known in the south -the Minnesota for Swindles, such as cheap paint jobs, however, law enforcement had few records depicting the gang crimes.

As the post bulletin reported, people were often too embarrassed to present themselves.

“However, he is a rare sucker who will go to the court and admit that he is a hammer who does not know of Rayon woolen acetate or carrier oil in the roof compound,” wrote the Minneapolis Sunday stand about the terrible victims of Scammer Williamsons in 1957.

After the family years that worked in Rochester, the city ordered them in July 1957.

While there have been occasional arrests made by one or two members of the group, law enforcement said they would pay fines or post the bail and move on to a new area.

Although the members have never been interviewed by a news store, their movements from the last century were documented in works in almost every state – and there is no reporting to depict the terrible Williamsons has never stopped.