Need grammatical help on a German phrase (romantic literature) involving "ward" (old form of "wurde")?

Question

While reading Heinrich von Kleist´s Die Marquise von O (very easy to read thanks to Kleist´s extensive usage of commas...), I stumbled upon a phrase which I couldn´t quite explain, even if the meaning is pretty clear.

Bald darauf ward der Familie, eben zu einer Zeit, da sich auch der Forstmeister von G..., des Kommandanten Sohn, in dem Hause eingefunden hatte, der sonderbare Schrecken, durch einen Kammerdiener, der ins Zimmer trat, den Grafen F... anmelden zu hören.

or :

Bald darauf ward der Familie der sonderbare Schrecken, durch einen Kammerdiener den Grafen F... anmelden zu hören.

(Spoiler: F... is thought to be dead and buried at that time of the novel)

The way I understand it, either it is a typing mistake or a old form for (die Familie ? Somehow "der Familie" klingt besser) or I can´t find the subject (special grammatical form?).

Answer 1

"ward" is an old form of "wurde". This construction

Der Familie ward der sonderbare Schrecken, den Grafen F. anmelden zu hören.

means

Die Familie hatte den sonderbaren Schrecken, den Grafen F. anmelden zu hören.

In modern German you wouldn't say "Mir wurde es Schrecken". To most people this will sound grammatically wrong. However some similar expressions survived and are still used, like "Mir wurde es Angst und Bange", which used to be "Mir ward es Angst und Bange". Coming back to your example this would look like

Der Familie wurde es Angst und Bange...

Answer 2

It is already mentioned in the other answers, that "ward" is an old form of "wurde". So a translation I consider as quite similar in English would be: "Soon afterwards the family was [this is the ward-counterpiece] subjected to the peculiar horror, to get count F. announced by the servant."

A little bit more modern would have been "ward ... zuteil", "zuteil" being the correspondence to the "subjected" above.