“[A Story of Grandma Hall of Horse Run]”
transcribed by G. Douglas Clarke and Carol M. Clarke
The subject of this story was familliarly called "Grandma Hall", and a resident of Horse Run, a place bordering on the line of Penn. Tradition says the name was given from the fact that a span of horses were lost in the fall of the year, and found in good order in the spring, so it was named Horse Run.
Her family consisted of her husband and ten children. They moved from the East, into this wilderness home in the year 1827. They endured the privations and hardships of a pioneer's life. They cleared the land, and made a farm which produced the substantials for their family necessities. One after another of her family were taken sick and died. Her loneliness and grief bewildered her mind. It was a general remark that Grandma Hall's mind was not right.
One day Grandma Hall started out for one of the neighbor's and lost her way. She crossed the stream of water, and wandered along the water's edge, hoping to find her friends, until past nine p.m.
My father's family were preparing to retire for the night [when] they heard the frantic screams of a woman's voice for help in the direction of my father's sawmill. Father called his men and asked who would go with him. Some were timid about going out, as they said Panthers sounded so much like a human voice.
They armed themselves with guns and lights, and went directly to where the screams were, and found Grandma Hall just across the slash to the pond, pleading for help to get over the slash. They assisted her across and to the house.
My mother prepared a cup of tea and coaxed her to eat, and then assisted her to retire for the night. She was no more than comfortably in bed, before the wolves set up a terrible howl which continued until morning light began to dawn.
In the morning the men found wolves' tracks, and the ground pawed up all around where Grandma Hall stood down to the water's edge, showing what her fate would have been had she remained where she was.
The strain on her nerves, from the effects of getting lost, and the escape from being devoured by wild beasts seemed never to be overcome.