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The views and opinions expressed in this website are solely those of the author and may not reflect the opinions of the businesses mentioned on the site. Any endorsements of products and/or services herein are the sole responsibility of the website owner and subject to his discretion and whim.

The names and sexual orientations of the individuals mentioned on this site are presumed to be accurate. Any discussion involving the sexuality of these people is not intended to degrade or demoralize the individual.

 

An excerpt from the book...

 

 

Fall River, Massachusetts

After the Forty Whacks
The Other Borden House

 

New England has suffered its share of tragedies and despicable acts. From the early days of the Salem witch trials, the land has had a taste for blood. And blood it has seen. Amidst the bountiful centuries of life, great tragedies have befallen the region. Massacres and battles. Suicide and homicide. New life coincides with death.

Were it not for tragic events which unfolded in 1892, the town of Fall River on the southern border of Massachusetts would have remained obscure and forgotten. Yet one spirit from this infamous crime has not found peace in the solitude of French Street. Her lingering shade is overshadowed by the house where she lived previously, and where her family life was changed forever.

.   .   .

The tragic tale of Lizzie Borden began at her father’s home on Second Street, in a blue-collar neighborhood of Fall River. She was the eldest daughter of a former undertaker, known for his miserly financial habits. As an undertaker, Andrew Jackson Borden was known to be absurdly frugal. Townspeople whispered that Andrew would go so far to pinch pennies as to bend the legs of the deceased for coffin measurements, saving a few precious inches of lumber expense in any way possible.

While the family was far from impoverished, the Borden household scrimped on every expense at the behest of Andrew Borden. He was one of the wealthiest men in the city, earning his fortunes through banks and commercial real estate. He refused to part readily with his capital. Living arrangements were very modest. The only toilet was in the cellar, yet it was rarely used. Each room in the dwelling contained a chamber pot, emptied into a slop pail every morning and spread across the back lawn.

Andrew’s wife, Abbey Durfee Gray, was not Lizzie’s mother. Her biological mother, Sarah Anthony Morse, passed away in 1863 when Lizzie was only three. Abbey had not been well received in the household. She was reclusive and overweight, spending nearly all her days inside their Second Street home. Yet there is little doubt she had minimal effect in rearing Andrew’s two children, Emma Lenora and Lizzie Andrew.

Lizzie was the youngest daughter: a very plain girl with deep amber hair and chilling, pale blue eyes. Her shoulders were broad, as was her waistline, adding to her already coarse and sallow complexion. Thick jowls erased the feminine contours of her face, yet she compensated for her lackluster appearance in her behavior. Lizzie was polite to everyone and had impeccable manners. Animals received the majority of her affections and care, for she possessed awkwardness in social settings and had difficulty obtaining human companions.

Once a month, Lizzie’s mood would turn sour during menstruation—a concept lost upon the Victorian mind. She endured worse pangs than most women suffer, and was a force to be reckoned with. Sulking was her mildest discourtesy. If a person made her upset or angry, she would refuse to speak with the offender for days on end. The family avoided Lizzie’s wrath at all costs; even Andrew handed over a lavish expense account to his daughter as not to be bothered by her darker side.

That late Thursday morning on August 4, 1892, murder swept the Borden household. Lizzie spent the morning in the barn searching for metal sinkers to use for fishing with her sister, who was away at Fairhaven. Upon returning home, Lizzie discovered the body of her father. Bridgett Sullivan, the Irish household maid referred to as Maggie by the children, was in the attic when she heard Lizzie shouting to her.

“Maggie, come down!”

Bridgett was startled by her tone. “What’s the matter?”

“Come down quick! Father’s dead! Somebody’s come in and killed him!”

Her father was reclined on the sitting room sofa. His bloodied coat was bunched behind his head. Abbey was later discovered in the guest bedroom. Her body was face down on the floor beside the bed. Both victims had received blows to the head with an axe: Abbey was struck 18 times while Andrew only 11.

Police descended on No. 92 Second Street. Guilt was immediately placed upon Lizzie. She hadn’t left the house for very long on the morning when the crime was committed. The previous day, she had attempted to purchase cyanide (then referred to as “prussic acid”) at a local store without a prescription. The Sunday following the double murder, a witness saw Lizzie burning a pale blue Bedford cotton dress in the kitchen stove, allegedly because it had been ruined by wet paint. The barn loft floor was coated in dust, revealing that no one had set foot there for quite some time.

With the mounting evidence, Lizzie was indicted for both murders. Her trial lasted fourteen long days in June of 1893. However, luck was on Lizzie’s side. Testimony concerning her attempt to purchase poison was barred. José Correira had recently committed a similar axe murder in the area, spreading reasonable doubt among the jurors. After one and a half hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Though legally liberated, many maintained her guilt.

The memory of Lizzie Borden is often confined to the Second Street house and these horrific murders. What happened after the murders is often forgotten: the story of a women running from her past with a new name. Lizbeth A. Borden.

.   .   .

Five weeks following the acquittal of Lizzie Borden, she and Emma moved to “the Hill”: a fashionable area of town where the best families lived in luxury. They chose a lovely house at #7 French Street, owned by Charles M. Allen. It had been built in 1890 and was purchased in July of 1893 for the modest price of $11,000. Immense maples shadowed the home. Lizzie chose a suitable name for their new domicile: Maplecroft.

A few minor cosmetic operations personalized the new house. Mantles were replaced in a few rooms. The French linen ceilings and drapery remained. A mason was dispatched to the house to chisel the word “MAPLECROFT” into the stone steps leading to the front door. Residents scoffed at such a bold and tasteless act on a Victorian home. But Borden did as she pleased. She answered to no one.

Lizzie was determined to put her past behind her. The town had ostracized her after the trial and the name “Lizzie Borden” was often met with critical murmurs. She was immortalized by a brief verse written to provide a catchy phrase for selling newspapers. “Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother forty whacks. And when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.” In minute effort to distance herself from that episode of her life, she changed her name in all correspondences to Lizbeth A. Borden. She was a new woman with a new future. Maplecroft itself changed with her when it was renumbered ‘306’ in 1896.

Yet Lizbeth’s dealings with the law were not over. A warrant was issued for Borden’s arrest in 1897. She was accused of stealing two paintings from the Tilden-Thurber Company store in Fall River. Authorities asked her to sign a confession in lieu of issuing a warrant. Her stubbornness prevailed and within a day of the warrant being issued, she signed the confession. The matter was resolved quietly and privately.

It was the camaraderie between Lizbeth and an actress which proved to be the talk of the town. Nance O’Neill met her in Boston in 1904 while vacationing at a summer resort. The two women became fast acquaintances, but never mentioned the sordid past of Lizbeth. Emma disagreed with her sister’s relationship and reproached her sister’s doting on O’Neill. Though O’Neill was a married woman, fellow colleagues knew her to be a lesbian. Her relationship with Lizbeth may have gone beyond a typical friendship.

That winter, Maplecroft played host to a party Lizbeth threw for O’Neil. Nance was in town with her theater troop performing at the local Academy of Music. As the performance ended, the Borden carriage was waiting at the stage door to whisk the actress away to Maplecroft. Her fellow thespians followed in hot pursuit. Whispers told of a play Borden was writing for Nance, but it was never spoken of in public. Lizbeth invited the actress again to visit her home when she returned later during the theatrical season. This time, Nance arrived alone. She was sick from overwork.

Tension was mounting in the house as Emma’s kinship with her sister was quickly fading. Emma confronted her sister about bringing her bosom friend into their home. Without finding solution to the disagreement with her sibling, she consulted the Reverend Buck. After telling the tale of what had been transpiring at Maplecroft, the shocked reverend advised Emma to move from the premises immediately. Emma moved from the house in June of 1905. She never spoke to her sister again. Emma stayed with the reverend’s family until 1915 when she moved to New Hampshire.

Nance broke off the companionship the following year. Lizbeth never recovered from her abandonment by the actress. She was left to her own devices in her home on French Street. Lonely years passed in her private isolation. She was a recluse in a world who had shunned her. “The Hill”—the place where wealthy townspeople aspired to live—became Lizbeth’s prison tower instead of a status symbol.

A brave few of her associates graced her with the occasional visit. Those who ignored the social disgrace of visiting Lizbeth were met with a warm welcome. On the front parlor mantle, an inscription enveloped by clover voiced testament to earlier, cheerful days of Nance and her socialite past:

“And old time friends and twilight plays
And starry nights and sunny days.
Come trooping up the misty ways
When my fires burn low.”

Borden also busied herself with changes to her proud abode. She arranged for the construction of a 14th bedroom above the kitchen and wrap-around porch in 1909. With the growing popularity of the automobile, a garage was added in 1911 and a chauffeur hired. Yet all of these changes were things. No amount of money could buy her what she desired most: a sense of belonging.

From her second story bedroom, she peered down on the world where she yearned to belong. A quote from her favorite poem, “My Ain Countrie” by Mary L. Demarest, was inscribed on the mantle surrounded by carved thistles. Lizbeth was fond of Scottish poetry and prose. She found comfort in the sorrows of others.
The years of torment would eventually end. Borden was taken to the hospital in 1926 with a gall bladder infection. Though she was treated for her ills and released after three months, she never recovered her health. One year later, she was stricken with pneumonia. She passed away in her bedroom at Maplecroft on June 1, 1927.

At Lizbeth‘s request, the first and fourth verses of “My Ain Countrie” were sung at her funeral. Few people attended. Her body was laid to rest beside her murdered family members. Only nine days later, Emma suffered a fatal fall at her home in Newmarket, New Hampshire. She too was buried beside her estranged sister at Oak Grove Cemetery. In Lizbeth’s will, the sum of $500 was placed in perpetual trust to tend to her father’s grave. Her immense fortune was dallied out to the people who stayed with her through her final years. The largest portion, $30,000 of her estate, was donated to Fall River Animal Rescue League to care for the many unwanted animals. Their love, after all, was unconditional of guilt or innocence.

Maplecroft was sold. After a failed attempt to convert the house into a bed & breakfast, it changed owners again in 1980 when it was purchased by Robert Dube. Tours were offered for a short time before ceasing in 1992. Dube placed the house on the market in 2008, it‘s ultimate fate is yet to be known.

.   .   .

While the ghostly focus of the Borden family is concentrated on the bed & breakfast on Second Street, Maplecroft hides its own phantoms. Michael Dube, son of owner Robert, recalls strange experiences in the house. While he slept in Lizzie’s bedroom as a teenager, he experienced her benign presence on a few occasions. A friend even witnessed her apparition. During press interviews, his father often alluded to the possible haunting at Maplecroft. Though he skirted the issue, any reference to the ghost of Lizzie was treated with an air of indifference and acceptance. In death, she seems to be a pleasant creature welcoming life and joy into her humble home.

The apparition of Lizzie Borden has a fondness for sitting at the window of her upstairs window, looking out on the tow of Fall River and lamenting her life. She is eternally waiting for one final visitor to bring cheer to her afterlife. Perhaps, too, she awaits the return of her favorite love, Nance O’Neill: the woman who scorned her so many years ago.

Copyright © 2009 Lethe Press. All rights reserved.

 

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