It was 1906, and after spending many sleepless nights thinking her home was haunted, Mrs. Welborn has her husband tear up a section of flooring in the sitting room. To their surprise, they found a nest of 42 rattlesnakes.
A Good Snake Story for the Beginning of the Season
Believing her house to be haunted, Mrs. Isaac Welborn, wife of a farmer of the Roundstone neighborhood, persuaded her husband to tear up the hearth in the sitting room, for she heard strange noises so long that she could not sleep.
A nest of rattlesnakes was discovered, coiled as in a ball. Mr. and Mrs. Welborn heated a kettle of water and poured the latter, boiling, into the nest of snakes. With a pair of tongs Mr. Welborn lifted out the rattlers, 42 in number, varying in size from 6 inches to nearly 5 feet.
Mrs. Welborn said t he snakes had been annoying her all winter. Every time a big fire was set going strange noises were heard, and persons who visited the Welborn’s ceased their visits. As last, Mrs. Welborn was stricken with nervous prostration. Now she is recovering.
Source: Carolina watchman. (Salisbury, N.C.), 18 April 1906.
