Lizzie’s A-Twitter Be it Salem or Fall River!

CHECK OUT THIS ABC NEWS CHANNEL VIDEO AND WHAT FALL RIVER PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY:

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I was excited when I heard about the “Lizzie Borden Museum” in Salem, and contacted Leonard Pickel on June 24 to offer assistance and perhaps loan some rare items from my collection for his 3,500 sq. ft. facility (3,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space). However, after two weeks of email exchange, learning of current litigation, and doing a little due diligence, I was less encouraged about the prospects of a first class operation. Learning this owner of Haunted Attractions magazine had planning and design exhibit experience solely on “home haunts” and the ghostly/paranormal genre, my enthusiasm waned considerably. When I asked what he had so far, Mr. Pickel informed me he had “only 50 hatchets so far” and that he was looking for good resolution images of the crime scene to make copies. Three weeks before his initial proposed opening (he wanted to open on her birthday, July 19th) he was still busy with contractors remodeling the venue and still looking for items to exhibit. Mr. Pickel had been asked by the FRHS (of which he is a dues paying member) to do a synopsis of his exhibit for submission to the Board for permission to access and obtain items from their collection. Clearly, the FRHS had the same reservations.

Mr. Pickel claims to have been planning this for years, yet his knowledge of the case is weak. One would think he would have been collecting source materials and reading everything possible to ensure accuracy of exhibits and the proposed CSI-type “journey” into the “true story of Lizzie Borden.” His website, as of this late date, still lacks a “Schedule” of operating hours, a “History”, or “Gift Shop” info. The website is in an ufinished state. Much as, I suspect, the exhibit/facility itself.

Fall River is home to Lizzie Borden. She remained in Fall River all her life. If she had moved to Boston and lived her remaining post-Trial years there, it would seem very appropriate for some type of Lizzie attraction. But in Salem, not so much. On the other hand, whether Mr. Pickel’s enterprise turns out to be a roaring success or a schlocky endeavor, people that visit it and are heading south, will most likely tour the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast (Mecca), visit the Fall River Historical Society, see the family graves at Oak Grove Cemetery and drive by Robert Dube’s “Maplecroft”. Lizzie brings in tourists. The vast majority of visitors to the FRHS come specifically to view their exhibit regarding the Borden case. And those that stay overnight at 92 Second Street get the best bang for the buck of any B&B in the country. PLUS, there are many Lizzie and case related artifacts on display and available for scrutiny at the B&B, including the most complete and comprehensive library of books, pamphlets, letters and journals easily available for review and research. The B&B is truly, the closest thing to a Museum that Fall River’s got – and almost a “living” museum, IMHO.

Yes, Fall River has repeatedly missed golden opportunities for obvious and new ways to capitalize on its most famous citizen. As descendents of the “founding families” literally die out, the resistance to that capitalizing seems to diminish. And that’s a good thing.

As to the new Superior Court across the street, it assumes and will hear those criminal cases which would have previously been at the old New Bedford Superior Court. It was not long ago that an inmate escaped the courthouse in New Bedford, much to the embarrassment of all concerned. The new facility in Fall River will have state of the art security. Talk of an increased criminal element in the Second Street neighborhood is without merit. There will be far more security in and around that building because of the nature of its operations than ever existed before in that space. And let us not forget that the Borden case Coroner’s Inquest and Preliminary Hearing were held in Fall River. Who knows, maybe arrangements will be made between the B&B owners and the court to have re-enactments in the future. I’d certainly pay to see it.

Some Glimpses of Lizzie’s View of The 1900’s

Here’s the painting “The Village Elms” which I believe is hanging over the sofa in the picture postcard below of “Mrs. Borden’s” home in the Highlands.

In the famous crime scene photo of the deceased Andrew on the sofa, note the painting above.  It was the due diligence of Leonard Rebello and Bill Pavao that identified the photo and had the print made that now all visitors to 92 Second Street can see.  Here it is below.

Lizzie Borden was fond of shopping and the theater in New York City. If she was on Twenty-Third Street in August of 1901, the video below is typical of what she would have seen. With the advent of Edison’s “moving pictures” films such as these were taken at many thoroughfares in popular cities throughout the U.S. and Europe. Queen Victoria had died in January of 1901 and only two weeks after this film, President William McKinley would be shot at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

Marc Dimon of the Fall River Herald News wrote a cute piece today regarding downtown Fall River. I liked his idea of “preserving” it as it is now. LOL! But it did bring me to mind of what Fall River was like “in Lizzie’s day” as illustrated by these postcards.

Working girls in the mill.

A family takes time out for some fun in their store.

A fancy hearse.

1918 Mary Whittum, 106 Hunter St. Fall River, Mass.” Shelves at left are cans of corn, salmon, Van Camps Evaporated Milk, boxes of Ideal Not-A-Seed Raisins, Zinc covered jars of Heideman Pickles and containers of Euclid Brand Sardines. Signs in the upper right are hanging boxes labeled ‘Ice Cream’ and ‘Nabisco Crackers’ with another sign saying in part- ‘Serve with ice cream.’

1914 Burritt & Chamberlin Drugs Store- 623 Locust St.

1914 – Peckham Dairy 104 Barrett Street at the corner of Peckham Street. Milk bottles can be seen in numbered compartments on the left. There appears to be metal pans, pails and dippers on the right. On the middle shelf is a framed certificate with the heading ‘Dairy & Food Department’ which was likely issued either by the City of Fall River or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The circular symbol on the certificate may well be the city’s motto- ‘We’ll Try.’

Gifford’s Jewelry Store – note clerk at left eyeballing shopper.

Rioux Tailors, 85 Purchase St. Fall River, Mass. 1912.

Popular custom of the times was to have a postcard made of your home. This one on Rock Street shows the Central Congregational Church in the background.

1906 “Mrs. “Borden’s home Highland Ave. F.R.,” it shows, we sitting on her sofa in the parlor of her home. There were quite a few Borden families residing in the Highlands. This is definitely not Lizzie. But take note of the painting over the sofa. Another popular print of “The Village Elms” which is the picture above the sofa at 92 Second Street in the crime scene photos.

4th of July Parade – 1918

4t

1913 – Mr. Hawkins Grocery Store on South Main

And of course the alluring Nance O’Neil

2 Poems, 1 Scene & A Timeline

Posters over at the blog A View From Battleship Cove (see Blogroll on right) have recently commiserated about the lackluster 4th of July in Fall River this year. They’ve tripped down memory lane of how it was in the past. Reading those posts compelled me to write this little ditty:

image from mattcuts.com

The summer nights of booming brights in skies alight

now fade away
as did the day

of booming looms and tolling bells and dinner pails

in this our town,
Fall River.

Smokestacks outlined derelick and still; no steamships sailing nor ever will

across the Mount Hope Bay

No blankets on the fresh mowed grass, as it were in summer’s past
And all these things we question Why

Of a disappointing Fourth of July
in this our town,
Fall River.

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What follows will be transparent to the person I had in mind when I wrote it (smile, smile, wink, wink):

Pretenses for purposes of popularity

Like the newly fertilized rose

Can be detected by looking with clarity

To verify the smell in one’s nose.

Pretenses for purposes of popularity

No matter how adept and sustained

Will yield its ultimate transparency

To those with an eye not untrained.

A rose then admired with adulation

Remains rooted in its fertilized pit.

Though smelling so sweetly its formation

Still has origins made purely of shit.

-November, 2007

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Emma Borden, the surrogate mother

The room was warm, thick, and the odor from the river drifted through the open window at 12 Ferry Street, Fall River, Massachusetts.

Nine year old Emma, her shoulders slouched, leaned against the wall in the hallway. She was worried. But that had always been her nature.

Lurana, Andrew’s sister, stepped quickly to the doctor’s orders.

Andrew rocked in a chair, in a room away from the others, contemplating the birth of a son.

It was July 19, 1860.

Sarah Anthony Morse Borden, two months shy of her 37^th birthday, was about to deliver her third child: Lizzie Andrew Borden.

So once again, come this Saturday, July 19th all those “this time in history” blogs, cable news quips, newspaper articles and other notable mentions will remind us of the woman who factored in America’s most compelling and enigmatic case.

We can ponder her birth or, as I like to do, ponder significant events prior to her birth – let’s take a 10 year lead-in where events in some way relate to the case or the Borden saga in general.

1850	Allan Pinkerton founds the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
1850	English author Charles Dickens writes David Copperfield.
1850	The first issue of Harper’s magazine is published.
November 7, 1850	Melvin O. Adams is born in Ashburnham, Ma.
1850	Fall River Population: 11,170
March 1, 1851	Emma Lenora Borden is born to Andrew and Sarah Borden.
August 15, 1851	William Arthur Davis is born (son of Butcher Davis).
January 10, 1835	George Dexter Robinson is born (later becomes 3 time Governor and head of Lizzie’s defense).
January, 1852	Alice Russell is born
May 1, 1853	Mary Jane Borden (d. of Cook Borden) marries James Hartley (parents of Grace Hartley Howe).
October 13, 1853	Phebe Davenport Borden, wife of Abraham and mother of Andrew, dies at age 64. Andrew is 31 yrs old.
January 26, 1854	Lurana Borden (Andrew’s sister) marries Hiram Harrington.
1854	Jefferson Borden organizes Metacomet Bank.
1854	Outbreak of cholera.
1854	Fall River incorporated. Motto: “We’ll Try”.
February 3, 1854	Abraham Borden deeds house on Ferry Street to Andrew. (LR28)
May 31, 1854	Edwin Augustus Buck is ordained as a Minister.
March 18, 1854	Charles C. Cook, long time Borden real estate manager, is born in Fall River.
April 20, 1854	William S. Borden, son of Deacon Charles L. Borden, is born (Arnold Brown’s “illegitimate son of AJB”)
April 22, 1854	City Charter adopted for Fall River, establishing 6 Wards.
April 22, 1854	James Buffington elected first Mayor of Fall River. Southard Miller elected Alderman of City of Fall River.
Nov. 23, 1854	Abraham Borden marries second wife BeBe Wilmarth, Andrew’s stepmother. (AJB is 32 years old).
1855	Oak Grove Cemetery is laid out.
1855	Saint Mary’s Cathedral (Second and Spring) dedicated
1856	Anti-slavery Republican party formed in United States.
May 3, 1856	Alice Esther Borden, second daughter of Andrew and Sarah, is born in Fall River.
1857	Financial Panic of 1857, Jefferson Borden saves Iron Works financial assets.
Sept. 14, 1857	George B. Harrington, only child of Hiram and Lurana, is born.
1857	Central Police Station built (remodeled from horse stables) on Purchase and Granite Streets.
March 28. 1858	Nathaniel B. Borden gives his inaugural address as Mayor of Fall River.
March 10, 1858	Alice Esther Borden, 2 yrs old, dies of hydrocephalus. Andrew is 36 years old. Emma is 7 years old.
May 1858	Josiah C. Blaisdell elected Mayor (and again in 1859).
1859	Union Mill Company formed by David Anthony and Hale Remington.
April 17, 1859	Philip Harrington, later to be Captain of Fall River Police Department, is born.
Aug. 10, 1859	Patrick Doherty is born in Wareham, Mass.
1860	Abraham Lincoln is elected as the first Republican President of the United States.
1860	Colonel Richard Borden, richest man in town, worth $375,000, wife is head of Cong. Church sewing circle.
1860	Southard H. Miller appointed Fire Chief (serves until 1869; also built Borden house) (ASPIII-114)
1860	Fall River population: 13,240
July 19, 1860	Lizzie Andrew Borden, born at #12 Ferry Street, Fall River.

Two One-Woman Lizzie Borden Plays Worthy of Mention

There are two one-woman plays centered on Lizzie Borden’s post-trial life at Maplecroft. One is the more contemporary Lizzie Borden Live and the other, Miss Lizzie Borden Invites You to Tea. The former stars the lovely Jill Dalton and the latter, playwrite and author Marjorie Conn. Both convey to the audience a Lizzie of conjectured character and substance based on case facts and what we know from newspaper reporting and court documents of her later life.

LIZZIE BORDEN LIVE

Jill Dalton gives an entertaining, humorous and insightful performance as a post-Trial Lizzie Borden in “Lizzie Borden Live”. Here’s a 6 minute excerpt from this engaging play. This video was shot by Richard Behrens of Gardenbay Films and is of exceptional quality.

“Spend an intimate afternoon with Lizzie as she speaks out for the first time about: the bad mutton, prussic acid, handleless hatchet, burned dress, betrayed confidences, morphine injections, confused inquest testimony, newspaper lies, dead reporter, bungled investigation, double murder reenactment, to her grand parties, European tour, and the relationships with her miserly father, overbearing stepmother, mouse of a sister and the stunning beauty and great Shakespearean actress, Nance O’Neil.”

The website for this play can be found here.

MISS LIZZIE A. BORDEN INVITES YOU TO TEA

For over 15 years Marjorie Conn has been performing her play, Miss Lizzie A. Borden Invites You to Tea. It continues to be been performed at various venues around the country by different actresses.

“In “Miss Lizzie A. Borden Invites You To Tea” by Marjorie Conn, Lizzie is an aging, lonely spinster in 1913. Twenty one years after the murders of her parents, the notoriety of her trial has waned and her status as ’social celebrity’ has faded. She’s been forgotten by all but a handful of hungry local journalists, and a bitter, taunting few. In this one-woman tour-de-force, starring Karen Asconi and directed by Frank Avellino, we witness Lizzie’s powerful lust for freedom and learn how such a yearning can drive one to acts of unimaginable desperation.” -website

I first saw Marjorie’s performance at the 1992 Lizzie Borden Centennial Conference at Bristol Community College in Fall River. I thought she captured the essence of Lizzie’s loneliness at Maplecroft and how much she valued her few visitors.  She still performs and was, in fact, slated to appear in this play at the now defunct Lizzie Borden Conference 2008.

When Obama Becomes President

It doesn’t matter one bit what either candidate SAYS will be their foreign policy, specifically ending the war in Iraq/Afghanistan/Catalina Island/Whereeverthephuck because the day after he’s sworn in, he gets that SUPER TOP SECRET SECURITY BRIEFING. You know the one:

• The one where they tell him where the frozen aliens from Roswell are kept.
• The one where they tell him what our secret astronauts are doing in that totally contained, six- mile wide space station they’ve been living on since 1982.
• The briefing where he’s told about our Top Secret Weapon that looks like a ball point pen that can incinerate the tallest building or a mass of 100,000 people with the flick of the nob as its pointed to any location on any map.
• The briefing where he’s told Walt Disney was resurrected from his frozen state 7 years ago, explaining the Mily Cyrus phenonmenon.
• The briefing where he’s told about our finding Osama bin Laden over 2 years ago but allow him to remain free because – in the long run – its all good for the economy. Trickle-down DOD contracts. “A Pentagon half empty is a Pentagon half effective.”
• He’ll be briefed on why allies today will be shit-heels tomorrow so as to improve his policy on “change”.
• He’ll be told the secrets of strategic planning for fluctuating unemployment and what it means to our third world nation colonies, er, fellow global marketeers.
• He’ll be told who the untouchables are in politics, science, the arts, commerce and industry no matter their indiscretions or heinous crimes.
• He will be briefed on all the immoral and illegal covert actions we are conducting against private citizens and foreign countries all over the globe and that he has no power to either constrain or terminate any of it.

And when he comes out of that briefing, *he* will be CHANGED. He will have aged. He will have the heavy weight of office firmly saddled to his back and his gait will be more restrained. His brow more furrowed. His grin less bright. His back bone less straight. His determination more compromised. His confidence eroded by the realization that consensus lights the path on which he walks rather than leads. He will walk slowly down that long hallway from the West Wing to the East Wing, a tiny tear transforming his soul.

And so it shall be a new beginning with a new President – in our evolved Democracy.

The second day he is in office – after that briefing…..

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On a lighter note is the following from poster “Ecclesfan” on the HBO Deadwood forum, Member Created Threads: Politics in Deadwood. The visual made me LOL.

“I can’t help myself. A picture just popped into my head. On election night, early, John and Cindy McCain are sitting on a couch watching the results. All the major networks call it for Obama in a landslide. Senator McCain, knowing he’s got to make a phone-call to Obama, reaches over and gently squeezes Cindy’s hand for support. She has heard that little catch in his voice before, when he’s been on the verge of tears. He’s been beaten. All his efforts, and all the campaigning, and all the traveling, and all the work that went in to this night, and now it’s over. Cindy, pulling her hand free, stands up, looks down at her husband, and says: “How could you do this to me?” “

Annette Holba – The Most “Cerebral” of Lizzie Authors

The newest book out on the Lizzie Borden case is Annette Holba’s (pictured above) Lizzie Borden Took an Axe, or Did She?- A Rhetorical Inquiry, <teneo>// press, 2008, 170 pages, softcover.

I met Annette Holba online as a result of her interest in attending the now cancelled “Lizzie Borden Conference 2008″ although I had been familiar with her writing for several years. As Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Plymouth State University, New Hampshire, she also holds a B.A. in Law & Justice Studies from Rowan University, an M.A. in Liberal Studies from Rutgers, and obtained her Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Duquesne University. Published in a number of Journals, including The Lizzie Borden Quarterly, The Hatchet, World Leisure Journal, Journal of Social and Natural Philosophy, Pennyslvania Speech Communication Annual, New Hampshire Journal of Education, and Florida Communication Journal among others, I have found her to be the most “cerebral” of all Lizzie authors. Why? Because my pea brain can hardly follow some of her writing, that’s why.

In this book, Annette employs Kenneth Burke’s rhetorical theory as a means to look “through the lens” to gain a better understanding of the Borden case – “one that might shatter the myth of Lizzie Borden’s guilt.” Actually, what Holba does is draw from several previously published writings which makes up the majority of this 170 page book.

Kenneth D. Burke, 1897-1993

The book begins “easy reading” enough in its Introduction of “The Cast, The Facts, The Story”, although the first of 17 errors in those 10 pages begins with the second sentence stating that Andrew Borden was “one of the wealthiest individuals in Fall River at that time.” He was not. Not even close to some of the Braytons, Remingtons and other Bordens, not to mention E. P. Charlton. But still its a good overview and the 17 errors in 10 pages are mostly minor and derived from the perpetual misinformation from other published books. Corrective action? Two words: Source Documents. Let me say it again, Source Documents. One more time: Source Documents. Okay, I’m done now.

There is a whole intellectual movement in the rhetoric of inquiry theory, and even spending two hours researching it, reading some essays, skimming through others….I still don’t comprehend it all. Perhaps its because I’m more pragmatic and a linear thinker. Perhaps it’s because I’m a Capricorn. Perhaps its because I’m a senior citizen and gazillions of my brain cells have already burned out. I dunno. But I know this: After all her arguments with the application of Burke’s theory and looking through that lens, Annette misses or at least fails to point out the true reason of why the police and other authorities handled Miss Borden with kid gloves. She was a Borden. And to understand the significance of that one has to understand what it meant to be a Borden in 1892 in Fall River. And to understand the significance of THAT one has to know Fall River’s history. So even if I *could* understand all of what she writes to make her point, I most likely would not agree with it. Having said that, and before I sound unfairly negative about this book, let me quickly add that any time we can have a new book on the case – good or bad – is something I’m always grateful for. In this case, Annette has given us a well written, well organized and documented book that applies something NEW and DIFFERENT to this mystifying case. And that’s no easy trick. Clearly, her scholarly erudition will appeal to a special niche audience of the higher educated than the usual market who buy Lizzie books.

I *do* recommend this book. Not only for a collectible, but for looking through a different “lens”. And even if you don’t understand all of it – what you will understand will give you new ways in which to ponder old puzzles of this continuing connundrum. That was Ms. Holba’s intent. And that alone is worth the price.

So, hats off to you, Annette.

Came across these remarks from poster “wordweaver” on Annette’s book from a Lizzie chat forum which relate to the above:

Age: 48 Zodiac: Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 2:28 am Posts: 231 Location: Silicon Valley The time here is: 7:16 am

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 2:43 am Post subject: I’ve got mine from Amazon. From the point of view of Borden researchers, the meat of the book consists of five essays previously published in The Hatchet or the LBQ. Dr. Holba has cleverly packaged these as a college textbook designed to teach students to use critical thinking skills to analyze narratives of all kinds. Lizzie Borden’s story is a good choice for this: it has blood, mystery, murder, and hints of unsavory sex; it’s a story that almost everybody has heard about but whose facts and folklore are widely divergent; there is a great deal of written evidence from the time and a number of retellings.The Lizzie researcher who isn’t interested in critical theory is unlikely to find anything new here. The Lizzie researcher who is interested in narratives qua narratives will wonder why there isn’t a chapter explaining Lizzie’s lifelong notoriety in terms of Michel Foucault’s carceral continuum. http://unnaturalhistory.blogspot.com