A trip through Painter's Run before the paved road

Excerpt from an oral history interview with Emma Hoffman recorded in January 1975

By Betty Robinson

Q. Did you ever have trouble getting there [Bridgeville] because of weather?

Emma: Oh yes, Well, you see, at that time Painter’s Run wasn’t paved, of course, and you would have to go through the Run three times from our place before you got to Bridgeville.

Q. You mean through the river.

Emma: You drive through the water and especially in the early Spring or in the wintertime, sometimes the water would be flowing over top of the ice, and the ice would have holes in it, and the horse would step down in the hole, you know.  

I remember one time my sister was teaching school in South Fayette Township, and I went down to Bridgeville.  She came down to Bridgeville on the train, and I was going down to Bridgeville to get her and I had a buggy and horse.  I must have been about 14 or something like that.  It was in the early Spring and the water was deep across the Run, and the first Run was down there by where Stampfol’s Garden Center is now, right on this side of it, was where you had to go through.  Well, the water was so deep, and I was afraid to go through and just as I was waiting there, I stopped the horse and was watching and looking to see whether I should try it or not, Mr. Tidball, who was our mailman, had a sleigh and he was coming home from delivering the mail.  So he came across the Run and the water was so high that it went in to the bottom of the sleigh, of course the sleigh was low, and he says, “Oh, I think you can make it, Emma.” 

So I told the horse to go on, and as I got just about to the middle of the Run the front wheel of the buggy fell down in a hole and the back wheel on the other side fell down, and I was stuck and the horse stopped right in the middle of the water.  Well, I got kind of seasick as the water was rushing so fast and right up above was a trestle which the railroad train went over, and I felt as if I were moving up the stream, you know, from the dizziness from seeing this water.  I guess I would have been there yet, but the horse had sense enough finally to go on, and we got across all-right.  

Well then I still had two more runs to cross before I got to Bridgeville, but we got through them all right.  So then I said to Jean, “I’m not going back that way.”  So we came back the Hill Road, which was the Noblestown McKeesport Road, which is now Cook School Road, and right up about where the old Cook School stands now, there was a great snow drift and we almost upset going through that snow drift, but we finally got home.

Image credits:
Source identifier: PC3322
Title: Margaret Gilfillan driving a horse-drawn carriage
Creator: Unknown
Description: Margaret Gilfillan and a family member drive a horse-drawn vehicle along the carriage drive next to the Gilfillan house on Washington Road, Upper St. Clair, PA.
Date: circa 1905-1910

Historical Society of Upper St. Clair Image Collection, 1875-2011, Historical Society of Upper St. Clair Archives