Emma Borden & Lizzie’s Lock of Hair

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

(Recycled)

Emma Borden from a sketch at her 1913 interview

Emma Lenora Borden was Lizzie Andrew Borden’s sister.  She was born March 1, 1851, and died on June 10, 1927, only 9 days after Lizzie’s demise.  Lizzie & Emma parted ways in 1905 when Emma moved out from “Maplecroft” and, so far as we know, never spoke or saw each other again.

On April 18, 1913, the Boston Herald published an extensive interview with Emma by reporter Edwin McGuire.  It was, up to that time, uprecedented that Emma spoke out publicaly.   (It has been speculated her motivation was the April 6, 1913 Boston Sunday Herald’s special edition article entitled: “Lizzie Borden 20 Years After the Tragedy” by Gertrude Stevenson).  In any event, Emma’s interview yielded us the above image.   I can’t help but wonder if she posed for this during the interview or if it was sketched from memory after…

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Hypocrisy of the Central Congregational Church

Originally posted March 31, 2012. But my opinion hasn’t changed.

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

We all know Lizzie Borden was very active in the Central Congregational Church of Fall River.  When she was suspected, accused, charged, incarcerated, and stood Trial for the murders of her father and stepmother, the Church stood by her.  But it wasn’t long before they “cut” her as explained in Parallel Lives.  Only a few of its members remained her friends, most all abandoned her after her acquittal.

In 1905 “History Annals and Sketches of the Central Congregational Church, Fall River, Mass”  written and compiled by Mrs. William Carr, Mrs. Eli Thurston, and Mrs. Charles J. Holmes was published. Mrs. Holmes had been especially supportive of Lizzie during the scandal and Trial. She was, in fact, like a surrogate mother bellowing her belief in Lizzie’s innocence. The Church stood behind her until it was all over. These women were all so prominent in Lizzie’s parallel church life and their…

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Early Visits to Fall River

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

Before it was the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum, the house at 92 Second Street was the home of John and Josephine McGinn.  The history of the owners and occupants of the property can be found HERE.

Following are some photos of my early visits beginning in 1977.  Click on images for larger views.

Above views are looking south up Second Street with the old bus station on the west side of the street.    I used to conduct taped interviews of the old timers waiting for the bus and still listen occasionally to their remembrances of the old neighborhood.

The “House” always had gawkers but few ever allowed inside. Note the wrap-around Leary Press where the barn was once located.

“Today” means the early 1980’s.

Note I received from John McGinn with their “new” postcard.

The Kelly’s wouldn’t recognize the place.

Thank you note from Josephine McGinn referencing the…

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To All The Lame-brain, Lazy-ass, Semi-literate People Who Think Lizzie Borden “Killed her parents with an axe”……

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

….because you’ve watched all those paranormal ghost chasing shows, or you saw the TV film with Elizabeth Montgomery or you’ve googled “Lizzie Borden” and seen her image as a teenager or twenty-something dripping in blood and wielding an axe.  Maybe it was a documentary, or you just heard it so much (she did it) that you’ve come to believe it.   — Well, I have this to say to you:

Click image for larger view.

READ A FUCKING BOOK!!!!

And preferably, THIS ONE.

Maybe the book is beyond your financial reach, but you could at least read the Review.  At least indulge yourself to become significantly more enlightened in just the time it takes you to read the Review.   Oh sure, you can skip it.  You might say it “Would take too much of my time and I need to text my BFF on something really important.”  Or maybe you’re…

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Lizzie Borden Won’t Be At The London Olympics But I Will!

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

Please join me on Sunday for my live reporting of the Opening Ceremonies of the London Olympics.  Selected by Facebook as one of two designated Special Correspondents, I will be typing LIVE as it happens.  If you have a Facebook account, enter Faye Musselman.  If you don’t have one, get one.  It’s free.  Or, just Google “Faye Musselman” and scroll to where it says Facebook.  I will be covering this LIVE as shown on NBC.  It will be great fun!  🙂 🙂 🙂

Some reflections on the 1984 LA Olympics:

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Vintage Fall River

Reblogged 2/2/22 – Just because I can.

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

Here are more images:

1st Congregational Church 1900’s

Durfee Textile School 1910 on Davol St.

City Hall 1950’s

Main Street 1950’s

Notre Dame 1907

City Hall 1908

South Park 1860’s

Globe Corners 1908

Main Street 1930’s

Post Office 1910

Fall River Hospital 1910

New Union Hospital 1910

Main Street 1900’s

South Park Pavillon 1908

Talbot store photo

EXTREMELY RARE PHOTOGRAPH – Showing the east side of a cornerstone Fall River business- the Talbot & Co. Clothing House. It is labeled on the back in pencil simply “1916- Second & Pleasant St.” Talbot’s, with its main entrance at 60-66 South Main St. in the former Pocasset Block, operated from early 1900 until about 1940 when Paul Woltman bought the business and moved his existing men’s store from the List Building on Third Street to the more visible location on City Hall Square. In the photo a young man dressed in overalls but wearing a bow tie can be seen leaning on…

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Arthur Sherman Phillips – Lizzie Didn’t Do It

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

(Recycled post from June 2008)

Arthur Sherman Phillips wrote the impressive 3-Volume History of Fall River and was a junior attorney assisting on Lizzie’s defense team. The case haunted him all his life and he never gave up on the belief that she was innocent.

As late as June 3, 1939, he wrote to Homans Robinson (1894-1973) of the Robinson-Donovan law firm. He was the son of 3-times Governor George Robinson, Lizzie’s lead attorney at her Trial.   In his 3-page letter shown below, Phillips cites so many of the sources of speculative theories surrounding this case and ones that surface repeatedly in books, articles, and arguments towards her innocence.

It is not known if Homans Robinson, a 1916 graduate of Amherst college, replied to this letter. Surely if he had complied with Phillips request for a copy of the questions Attorney George Robinson presented to Lizzie, along with her…

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Random Nuggets – John W. Coughlin & Josephine McGinn

 

As Mayor of Fall River

 

Mayor Coughlin is back row, second from right.  Franklin D. Roosevelt is seated, center.

Coughlin, John W. (1861-1920) — of Fall River, Bristol County, Mass. Born in Fall River, Bristol County, Mass., June 9, 1861. Democrat. Physician; mayor of Fall River, Mass., 1891-94; defeated, 1889; Massachusetts Democratic state chair, 1896; candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, 1901; member of Massachusetts Democratic State Committee, 1901-20; delegate to Democratic National Convention from Massachusetts, 1904, 1912 (speaker); member of Democratic National Committee from Massachusetts, 1912; candidate for U.S. Representative from Massachusetts 15th District, 1912.  Clearly, he was a

He died December 3, 1920 (age 59 years, 177 days), less than 3 months after the above group picture was taken.

***************************

 

I was in Fall River during the demotion of the Leary Press.  Exploring through the rubble I found this check receipt laying in plain sight payable to Josephine McGinn, written in 1993 by her grand-daughter and my friend, Martha McGinn , in the amount of $10,000.  Martha ran the Leary Press after John died and made periodic payments to her.  (Note:  There’s a certain symmetry to the fact the check is drawn on the Citizen Savings Bank – the bank which Andrew Borden was President when he died.)

Mayor Coughlin died when Josephine was just a little girl.  The Leary Press no longer stands.  The House at “92 Second Street” still stands.  And the enduring fascination of Lizzie Borden grows stronger with each generation.

 

The Most Factual Telling on the Lizzie Borden Case Has Not Yet Been Produced

• 

  Frank Warren Knowlton
  

One specific letter in The Knowlton-Pearson Correspondence pretty well sums up where we are today relevant to the most interesting book on this case.  Written 35 years after the murders by the son of the prosecuting attorney to the prolific true crime writer who published the first widely read book on the murders we have this:

                         Knowlton to Pearson October 28, 1930

It was only six years after Studies in Murder was published but over three and a half decades since the Superior Court Trial when Frank Knowlton wrote to Edmund Pearson that: 

         “The really interesting book About the Borden case has not yet been     written,”

He could be saying that today, 128 years later.   Knowlton says most of what has been written relates to the circumstances and tries to reason back to find the cause.  He posits that it should be a psychological study of Lizzie imagining her life, comprehensive and in depth.  (We get a shadow image of that through Parallel Lives – Fall River Historical Society – but even that was limited to her society and not the psychology or dynamics of Lizzie and her household).  If a book did deal precisely as Knowlton suggests, we would have a completely different image of this most enigmatic character of American unsolved crime  – now evolved into a bloody icon of almost epic status in the occult pop culture.

What we have today is represented by the very latest of Lizzie Borden t.v. docudramas with an emphasis on the paranormal.  It’s the “Curse of Lizzie Borden” premiering this date but I do not recommend it nor provide any information to promote it.  But like so many that have come before it, it has a “hook”.


“Demons” is the hook with this one. When renewed interest in the paranormal exploded in the early 1990’s, the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast became a recurring focal point for “investigations”. As books, documentaries, films, and t.v. programming grew, so did the need for program content. Productions metastasized and distribution poured into various entertainment programming channels. The caveat is always “entertainment” but the minions of those interested in the occult usually accept the productions as fact. Lizzie Borden, due to her mystique as a person and the case being a classic unsolved crime, was a natural for exploitation. Regurgitation of misinformation has necessitated “hooks” to sustain an audience eager to be thrilled and shriek  with things that go bump in the night.

Spin-off websites and podcasts are part of the metastasizing process. Lizzie Andrew Borden’s evolution from the virginal, church-going middle class daughter of a well-to-do banker and real estate investor, has morphed into a crazed axe-wielding psychopath who haunts 92 Second Street. Thus, the parade of paranormal investigators and their followers continue. “If you build it, they will come.” Alas, we live in an America where half believe in the falsities media presents to them. The subject of Lizzie Borden is a simple case in point to this cancer among us.

 

Where did that Lizzie “Noisy Bird” Letter go?

From September 2010.

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

The below image is of a display that once adorned the office wall of Reverend Robert Lawrence, past minister of the First Congregational Church in Fall River.   It contains the 2-page letter Lizzie Borden wrote on May 31, 1900 to John Summerfield Brayton about his crowing bird that disturbed her.  The letter was found tucked in a desk drawer many years later by his son.

First Congregational Church when it was on Main Street at the time Lizzie wrote her letter.

First Congregational Church on Rock Street as it looks today and where the Reverend Lawrence ministered.

On a visit to Fall River late last year, I once again went to view this.  It was gone.  I inquired earlier this year by phone to the Church office as to the whereabouts of this display and was told it was gone.  I was told that “Reverend Lawrence took it with him…

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Knowlton-Pearson Correspondence

Huzzah! Huzzah! The Fall River Historical Society has announced their new publication on the collection of letters regarding the Lizzie Borden case. Before this the only access to copies of the letters was to purchase the entire collection in single photo-copy sheets from the FRHS – which is what I did directly from curator emeritus, Florence Brigham, in the early 1990’s. I recall paying $15.00 at that time – no doubt to cover the copying costs – but I believe the FRHS suspended that access nearly 20 years ago. Having that collection available now for $20 is quite a treat. There is much to be learned from these letters as we follow Edmund Pearson’s journey of discovery. His growing friendship with Frank Knowlton evolves to guide Pearson to those involved, in various measure, with the case and those that knew Lizzie and shared their public and private remembrances.

The finished project first edition looks like this:

What follows are some pages from my collection of the photo-copies. Open image for large type. Let this not deter you from buying the new publication – I’ll be adding it to my bookshelves on our beloved Lizzie. 🙂 In the meantime, here’s the first letter (from Pearson) that started it all……and towards the end.

 

Newspapers of August 4th – 10th, 1892

Well, another August 4th has come and about to be gone and we can be done with the regurgitations in the telling of perhaps the most startling, notorious and unsolvable crimes in American history. Yep, it’s her: Our beloved Lizzie Borden of Fall River. Most of us get our news from online or television these days, but in 1892 it was the newspapers – and the Fall River Herald and Fall River Globe, rivals, went nuts with the story that spread across the country – and beyond – like wildfire.

The only thing new this year is the Fall River Historical Society announcing the soon to be published Andrew Jennings Journal donated to that august organization in 2011. Oh, and of course the “virtual” tours/re-enactments by the Lizzie Borden House.

The Fall River Historical Society states: “Included in the Appendix of this volume is the complete transcript of an interview with Andrew J. Jennings that appeared in the Fall River Daily Globe on August 6, 1892.” I believe the image shown here is that article:

Part of my collection of Bordenia stuff is a 10 volume set of most all the regional newspapers who reported on the crimes, the legal procedings, and Lizzie’s post-trial life. These copies of articles were collected and organized by Ed Thibault, donated to Donald Woods in 2004 and given to me by Donald later that year. Put on your reading spectacles because I’m posting here just a tiny fraction of those reports. The 10-volume set starts before the crimes and goes up and through 2012, when I stopped collecting. Remember, I’m only showing partial extracts from the Index to Volume I and only some selected pages of the hundreds of articles in that one Volume. Click images to enlarge OR OPEN IN A NEW TAB – to read the articles. Enlightening.

 

Timeline of Events Around and During the Borden Murders

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

It’s almost that time of year when focus on Fall River, MA is dominated by Lizzie Borden and the unsolved hatchet murders of her father, Andrew, and her stepmother, Abby on August 4, 1892.

A regurgitation of media mentions, short site and sound bytes, videos of the “murder house” (a Bed & Breakfast Museum since 1996) accompanied by eerie music and bloody graphics, and the gratuitous recitation of that inaccurate quatrain, “Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her father……” (please, don’t make me go any further) will surely play out on various TV channels throughout the country.

So…. before you indulge yourself in the hash and rehash (pun intended) put down the bong and get a focus on what was going on in Lizzie’s Fall River and her life in general before, during and right after the crimes. 

Below is an extract from my “Lizzie Borden Historic Timeline” which is…

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LIZZIE BORDEN HOUSE – If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The article below is an interview with the new owner, Lance
Zaal, on some of the changes and additions he is making to this popular Fall River attraction – from solar panels on the Gift Shop to no on-site parking for guests.

https://amp.southcoasttoday.com/amp/7456810002

But you really don’t get the full picture of what is changing and how those changes will alter the visitor experience that has endured for 25 years. To absorb that information, one must delve deeply into the Lizzie Borden House website HERE Please take the time to read it thoroughly.

Rates have gone up. Breakfast costs you extra. (Hence the name change from “…Bed and Breakfast” to Lizzie Borden “House”). No more roaming wherever you want anytime for overnight guests. Radical changes in cancellation policy, just to name a few. Those that are into the paranormal like touring the whole house, especially Knowlton’s room. Sorry, not any more.

The business model and operations at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum have hardly changed since this Fall River landmark opened in 1996 by my long time friend, Martha McGinn. Except for the accommodations to support the exploding interest in the paranormal and to capture that market, the overall experience in the daily tours and overnight stays has remained the same. The formula has worked because people keep coming back again, and again, and again. It’s precisely that experience that has sustained this business for two and half decades. People book long in advance excited in their expectations for when they return. It’s like when you dine out to a very special restaurant – you go back again and again because you want that same experience. Well folks, it just ain’t gonna be the same.

It’s not like discovering they put a Starbucks on Disneyland’s Main Street. That is but a mere pimple upon the landscape that fails to alter your overall magical experience. But what the Lizzie Borden House experience will become is a totally different thing. Pock marked. No longer will we feel the texture of that tattered fabric and its pulsating historic residue. Instead we will scurry through a neon-lit bounce house with sequined bedspreads and a carnival barker, “Get your tickets here!”

To Donald Woods and Lee-ann Wilber I say, thank you for keeping the experience alive as long as you did.

To Lance Zaal, I lament with a hollow plea: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Goodbye, old friend. I’m so glad I knew you when.

 

Lizzie Borden and the Month of June

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

(Originally created and posted June 1, 2009 without images)

Partial extracts from my historic timeline for the month of June follows.    It helps one gain a perspective on what influenced Lizzie Borden and the world she lived in.   Well, sort of.  One can also watch old films like Pollyanna to get a peek into the mores, customs, societal hierachy of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

Speaking of Pollyanna, I watched it the other day and was particularly struck by its accurate depiction of the power the founding families had within their communities, including the Church.  Just as Polly Harrington (Jane Wyman)  dictated what her church minister (Karl Malden) would trumpet from the pulpit, made me wonder if the Bordens and Durfees influenced what their ministers would speak on for the Sunday sermons at the Central Congregational Church.

June 20, 1635

John Borden, wife, and two children set sail for America.

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Meet the New Owner of the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum

UPDATE (4/20/21): A seemingly valid “rumor” has come to me that Mr. Zaal has not been able to secure a sufficient number of investors to actually purchase The Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum under the current “Agreement Contract”. Other attempts, though comparatively quiet, have also failed to obtain more properties to add content for his ghost hunting experience enterprise, so says my rather reliable source. We shall see. OTOH, my personal opinion as to his statements to the media as to its future use: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Assuming escrow closes without a hitch, meet the new owner, Lance Zaal, who definitely appears to be an Alpha male. He has something in common with Donald Woods, owner of the LBB&B Museum since 2004, both are Ex-Marines!

From reading his background it would appear the “ghost hunting” (i.e., paranormal investigations) will continue if not taken to a dynamic and expanded level. A new era has begun for this tourist destination – be it in person or virtual.

I wish him much success ensuring Bordenia enthusiasts who trek to Mecca will continue to reap the thrill of being “in the same place at a different time” where one of America’s truly great unsolved crimes occurred.

You go, guy!

Lance’s History

More detail on Lance can be found on his Linked-in page HERE.

 

The Skulls of Andrew & Abby Borden

I’ve always concurred with Dr. Dolan’s opinion as to who did the crime.

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

Dr. William Andrew Dolan

The autopsies of Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother were conducted one week after the murders – August 11, 1892, in the “ladies waiting room” at Oak Grove Cemetery.  It is the structure to the left in this picture postcard below.

Here is a more contemporary view:The little building is now used to house gardening tools and supplies and also serves as a break room for the grounds-keepers.

Upon the instruction of District Attorney Hosea Knowlton, the heads of Andrew and Abby were severed and taken home by Dr. Dolan.    They were unceremoniously boiled of their flesh on his kitchen stove (much to the fright of his two young sons), and maintained in his home until presented in court at the Preliminary Hearing.   The sisters were not informed, nor the media – one of the better kept secrets of the prosecution’s case. 

Below is the link…

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LIZZIE BORDEN BED & BREAKFAST BEING SOLD!!

https://wbsm.com/fall-river-lizzie-borden-bed-breakfast-for-sale/?fbclid=IwAR2gXvLg0623Q1o69784fSdj2D7Ai1lNAyXF2cKjnSjal3NqEYRKu2E4474

 

Like it or Not – Fall River is Synonymous with Lizzie Borden

Originally posted February 23, 2010 but worthy of re-blogging. A lot has happened in the past decade, however, Fall River remains pretty much the same.

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

Fall River remains one of those cities best viewed from a distance.  Up close her blemishes neither beckon nor embrace.  Lizzie Borden, on the other hand, forever beckons, blemishes and all.

From a historical perspective, Fall River is as associated with Lizzie Borden as Dallas is to the JFK assassination. Both horrific and shocking events, both forever embedded in American history.

The Lizzie Borden story is not just about a 32 year old spinster who wielded a hatchet, (let me repeat that – HATCHET) on a highly humid August 4th day, but is a case about class structure in a stratified society with the poor deferring to the power and control of the founding families.  It is the incredulity of the circumstances of such a heinous crime in broad daylight with suspicion of a Borden – and the younger daughter at that – which gives this Victorian patricide its…

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The Great Consumer Vortex

Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

Realizing I left two people out when I thought I had purchased for everyone, I readied myself for the onslaught and ventured into the The Great Consumer Vortex. After circling the Target parking lot for 9 rotations, I found a spot. I lingered and waited, like a hawk citing roadkill. When my front and his rear bumpers cleared, I claimed my space. While only 80 feet from the door, dodging sedans, SUV’s, pickups, skateboards, shopping carts, scooters, and random, racing toddlers, I crossed the Target threshold after 29 life-inhibiting minutes.

What to buy?, what to buy?.  I felt like a laptop reboot succumbing to the season: : “Let it load, let it load, let it load”. All cashier aisles were open, narry a small line amongst them. Ohhhhh    Mmmmmmm    Geeeee. I’ll be here all phuckin’ day. “What would Al Swearingin do?”, was my self-querry (I’ve been DVD-ing Deadwood of late)…

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