Staunton spectator, and general advertiser. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 183?-1849, 1843-11-23
Correspondent of the Newark Daily Advertiser.
OLD MRS. PYE OF THE HALF way HOUSE.
ALBANY, October 81, 1913.

|
ALBANY, October 81, 1913.
! Perhaps few of your readers have heard oil
old Mrs. Pye, OF the Half way house between
this city and Troy. She is famous in these
parts, and known to thousands Of travellers as
the woman who shot the robber in her bed
room very many years ago. She has Just been
buried, and know you will be amused and
interested with some "reminiscences of her
! life.
In early life she came TO this country from
England and married man by the name @!
Pye, who kept a small tavern on the turnpike
10 Troy, then the chief and almost the only
inn between the two cities. Though her
husbands name was on the sign post, he could
never say, as Boniface did when a stranger
drove up suddenly to his door and asked.
"Are you the man of the house 7"
"fes," SAID Bonilace, "my wife has been
dead these three weeks"
Not so with mine host of the half way house.
Mrs. Pye was the man of the two, as could
be proved by a hundred facts Take one.
Alter they had lived some years on the place.
paying an annual rent for ii, a mortgage ON il
was To be foreclosed and the place sold. Pye
told his vile they must give it up, as he had
not the means to buy it, but she went into a.
mother room of the house and brought out
fre thousand dollars in silver. which she had
boarded up in shillings, Sc, from the earn
ings oil the bar; and knowing that she would
make safer sub-treasurer than the nominal
head oil the government, she had taken charge
OF the funds, and now produced them at a time
OF need.--So the place was paid for and they
became Proprietors.
Some time afterwards, perhaps the report
nF Mrs pya1c h,h l.
spread abroad, a thief undertook 10 remove the
deposies, and for this purpose entered the bed
chamber of Mr.. and Mrs. Pye at the dead hour
of night. They were both awakened bv his
movements, and the timid husband covered
himself up under the bed clothes. while the
Amazon wife seized loaded gun, which they
always kept standing by The bed side. and sho,
the robber. Other accounts state that she
reused her husband, gave him the gun, and
that he shot the robber as he was running
down stairs. Whichever account is true, all
the merit of the act belongs To the woman
But MIR. Pye died in course OF time, leaving
the widow sole heircss Of his now handsome
property There was but one drawback TO
Mrs. Pye's happiness, and that was a debt of
five hundred dollars due to the barkeep for
his services. She loved money so well that
she could not bear to part with so much in
one sum, and SO she compounded the debt BY
marrying the creditor!
But Mrs. Pyc's usual prudence failed her
II. this marriage, for she forgot TO secure her
property, and by and by her second husband
died, leaving the bulk of the property to some
relatives in England, while the widow re-
ceived but little sum, which with industry
and economy, was barely enough for her sup
port. She has lived in the same neighbour
hood until last week, when, at the age ofnine-
fy-eigM years, she was gathered with the
dead.
For some years past she has had her grave
clothes prepared, and has been in the habit of
dressing herself in them before the looking
glass to see how she would look all bnt her
cap; she said the fashion of caps altered so
often that she would leave that to be made
when ii was wanted.
The gentry in the neighborhood have been
IN the habit of visiting her and minis,erng 10
her wants, and she distributed among them
all her effects, such as table to one, char
to another, the gun to another (sIle always
kept it,) and requested that she might lie three
days and then be buried, and on the fifth dav
that her legatees should come and get Meir
things.
These facts, and many more that | might
mention, are matters of nosorieiy in the region
of her life and death. and now that she has
been buried, "a large gold plate on her coffin,
bought with her savings for that express pur-
pose,) do notknow that any harm will come
from publishing them.
Yours truly, G. L. w.