1. "Bridget's Babies?"
Posted by Kat on Jul-14th-02 at 1:07 AM

This is a spin-off of my question to Edisto, on the Topic "Happy Birthday".

Augusta and I happened to be reading the same article and it's called Lizzie Borden and the Library Connection, by John David Marshall, FSU, 1990.

Pg. 13;
"Bridget met and married a man named Sullivan, had several children by him, and spent the rest of a long life (51 years) in Montana."

Well, I'll tell you...E-mails are going between us and I asked Stef and I asked Harry and we all of us want to know how THEY  (the big "They") really truly know for certain that the Montana Bridget is OUR Bridget!  Now she has kids!?  (There is no footnote---BUT the story itself this author/librarian tells supposedly explains the whole thing...)

That isn't the only reference saying Bridget had children.  I remember reading "somewhere" (another search of every book in my library!) that Bridget had "many children."  However, most of the authoritative references say she had none.  This subject would probably make a good LBQ article if it hasn't already been done.  I have a full set of LBQs, but it's hard to remember what's in all of them.  I do recall at least one article that made an effort to trace Bridget, but I think its focus was her life in Ireland before she came to the U. S.  For one thing, I had the impression Bridget didn't marry until relatively late in life.  Assuming the Bridget who married John Sullivan was even the same person, she probably wouldn't have had time to have a large family.  She was already in her late 20s (probably) by the time the Borden case was over and we lost track of her.  I've wondered if she married someone who had been married before (all too common in those days).  She may have had stepchildren.  Wouldn't it be nice if these authors would be more specific about their own sources?

John David Marshall has a long Bibliography in his pamphlet, but does not give a detailed reference for "Bridget's offspring."
In the April 1996 issue of the Quarterly, Riobard O'Dwyer, world renowned genealogist, has contributed an article about Bridget Sullivan. He does not indicate that Bridget had any children, but he does establish that the Bridget Sullivan who moved to Anaconda, Montana circa 1896 and married John E. Sullivan, is indeed "Our Bridget." Private communications with Leonard Rebello indicate that he is in agreement with Mr. O'Dwyer.
The Bibliographys of the Quarterly on Stefani's website, are most helpful when searching for a particular article. Just one of the many useful features of her website.

(Message last edited Jul-14th-02  1:39 PM.)

How did the writer of the LBQ article establish it was "our" Bridget?  There were several other Bridget Sullivans just in that area alone.  Bridget had no birth certificate.  Bridget didn't even know when her birthday was.  When she was asked how old she was in court, she gives her age.  And they ask her, "How do you know that?" and she says that she had been told that.  I would think it would be impossible to prove it beyond a doubt.  But perhaps the writer came as close as he could.  But how? 

All I get out of the story as I know it is this Minnie Green who told a librarian about her after Bridget's death, and the librarian told someone after Minnie's death.  Then there's the tale of the Bridget-with-pneumonia who almost made some deathbed confession.  Then there's a story I read about Bridget's neice, whom she lived with in her last years.

I would think that possibly a good way to authenticate Bridget's whereabouts would be to go thru descendants of people she named in her testimony.  We know for sure she was there, and she must have let some of them know where she went afterwards.  There's also that story we always hear, that Jennings told her to go to Ireland and not come back.  Maybe look at the papers of his that weren't published?  Maybe Hilliard's papers will shed some light on it. 

The same article, only re-written, was published in PROCEEDINGS, 3 years later.  I just noticed this, last night at bedtime....

"...Mollie O'Meara, for many years librarian of the Butte, Montana, Public Library.  From her comes what little we know of the life of Bridget Sullivan (1869 -1948) (sic?) following Lizzie's trial.

Bridget Sullivan and her friend Minnie -- both in their early twenties -- came from Ireland to America in 1886.  Bridget went to Massachusetts where in time she went to work for Andrew Jackson Borden in Fall River.  Minnie went to Montana where in time she became Mrs. Minnie Green, and made her home in Butte.

Bridget and Minnie exchanged letters from time to time over the years.  Bridget never mentioned in any of her letters anything about the Borden murders or the trial.  Minnie out in Montana did not hear about the murder trial at which her friend testified. 

Bridget, after the trial, returned to Ireland and lived there for a few years.  She was not happy back home in Ireland, perhaps because she could not find a husband.  She decided to return to America.  When she got to New York, she went west to Montana where her friend Minnie was still living.  There Bridget met and married John M. Sullivan (1868 -1939), had several children by him, and spent the rest of her long life (51 years) in Montana.**
[**Editor's Note:  There is no evidence of any children, and none were mentioned in Bridget's obituary or death notice.][Rychebusch is the Editor].

Bridget and Minnie renewed their friendship, but it was many years before Bridget ever spoke to her friend about the Borden murders.  Six years before her death in 1948 at the age of 79, Bridget finally told Minnie Green about Lizzie Borden and about having been a witness at Lizzie's trial.  Bridget asked Minnie to say nothing about this conversation.  Minnie honored this request as long as Bridget lived.

Then one day soon after Bridget's death in a hospital in Butte, Minnie Green came into the Butte Public Library.  Here librarian Mollie O'Meara found Minnie wandering around in the bookstacks and offered to help her.

Minnie asked Miss O'Meara if the library had any books about murders, 'not the made-up kind but murders that really happened.' [Ah!  A footnote!  LINCOLN 313]  When Minnie learned that the library had books about real murders, she wanted to know if there were any books about the Borden murders.  There were, of course, books about this case.  Minnie checked out several and returned them in a few days.  Miss O'Meara asked Minnie if she had learned anything.  Minnie 'shook her head, looked puzzled, and left.'  She never came back to the library.  [Radin 249].

To explain her interest in the Borden case, Minnie told Mollie O'Meara about her longtime friendship with Bridget Sullivan and what Bridget had told her about the Borden murders, which was not much, only that she had been a witness at the trial.  Miss O'Meara never said anything about Minnie Green and her story about Bridget Sullivan until some years after the deaths of both Bridget and Minnie.

...By way of Radin and Lincoln, I learned of librarian Mollie O'Meara.  She, by the way of Minnie Green, learned about Bridget Sullivan and what became of her."

--SO, anyone who wants to look in Radin or Lincoln can do so here, if they like, to fill this in (?)....
--BTW:  I wonder which *several* books on the Borden case would be available at the Butte, Montana Library in /around 1950?



(Message last edited Jul-15th-02  4:13 AM.)

Some of these stories raise more questions than they answer.  I too wonder how the authorities came to the conclusion they were following the right Bridget Sullivan, given the fact that she had no exact DOB and little was known about her prior to the murders.  Also, why on earth would Minnie Green have looked puzzled if she did indeed read "several" books about the Borden case?  Certainly Bridget's role in the case is spelled out in every book I've read.  I too wonder about those books available in 1950.  We know a copy of Porter was very hard to come by before it was reprinted, so that maybe leaves Pearson and ????  I have been rereading some of the Borden books I have.  I'm working on Porter now.  He, like most other sources, says Patrick Harrington of Division Street was Bridget's cousin.  Then a few pages later, Harrington turns into merely a "friend."  I had wondered if Harrington's descendants (if any) would have been a good clue to the whereabouts of the "real" Bridget.  That, of course, assumes Harrington was actually related to Bridget. Oh, BTW, Rebello says Bridget and John Sullivan were married in 1905.  Assuming Bridget was around 26 in 1892, she would have been pushing 40 at the time of her marriage.  Most unlikely she would have had a large family after that!

Mutha of Gawd....Bridget had babies?  Saints preserve us...I thought she and Mistah Sullie didnet have any...blessed be the couple...

Gosh it's wonderful to be back in the family again...

BC

You so much FUN!bobcookbobcook!

Hello, again.

Now let's do this writers math for him like the Irish nuns made me do in class...or get the ruler smacked on our hands.

He gives a date of birth as 1869, and says Bridget and her friend came here in their "early twenties", while Bridget was really only 17 according to his own date.  If she lived in this country not quite 6 years at the time of the Prelim., that would only make Bridget 23, whereas she states on the stand she has been told she is 25.  (p. 46).

Now, if one wants to be truly confused they may read Geo. Quigley's article in the LBQ, which sounds good but again, the math is all wrong!  (I'm afraid I'm not just repeating what was annotated there---It was I who noticed the math and pointed it out to Stef...):  Fall/Winter LBQ, 1995, "The Borden Maid:  Myths & Legends".

In Bridget's Prelim., pgs. 45 and 46, she says she lived in Newport upon coming to this country:
12 mos.
12 mos. So. Bethelem, PA
15 mos. Highland Ave.
7 mos. High Street
33 mos. Borden's
__________
79 mos. & a "a little while", "two or three weeks" with Dennis Sullivan (a friend) in Newport.
So how long is that?  She says in Aug., 1892 she had been in this country "Six years ago the 24th of last May."

OK make it 80 months.
Really, how long is that?  6.6 years, is that 6 1/2 years?
"6 years last May" (from August) would be 6 years and 3 months?
Bridget has gained 3 unaccounted for months in this country, and 1/2 an hour on the morning of August fourth...By her own reckoning...

LINCOLN's Version of Bridget / Minnie /& Mollie

Pg. 52
"It says much about Bridget's longstanding fondness for Lizzie that no word of the theft leaked out until Lizzie herself first told of it on the evening before the murders. (Many years later, Bridget told her friend Minnie Green about that fondness, in self-exoneration for her one silence that was bought.) Bridget had not seen Lizzie's bank books, but she daily saw the mean penny-pinching that went on in the house. I, who was brought up by Bridgets and Delias and Bridies, know how readily she could have decided that Lizzie had no more than helped herself to a bit of what should have been hers by rights, the poor creature, and thereafter held her peace."

Pg. 311
"Bridget left town as soon as the trial was over. Our own various Bridgets and Bridies and Delias (who all claimed to know somebody who knew her cousins out on Division Street) promptly spread the word all over town that she had come into money, gone back to Ireland, and bought a farm. The assumption that she had been paid for telling less than she knew about the tension in the Borden house soon assumed the status of common knowledge. 'As everyone knows,' we used to say when discussing the case, 'the girls saw to it that Bridget was paid off.'

However, the more responsible and careful students of the crime, such as Edmund Pearson, always laughed at this notion."

Pg. 312+
"Then I read a book that set her forth as the true criminal and stated that she had died in Butte, Montana. (1)  Its author told of having been permitted to examine the sequestered documents and Mr. Jennings' pocket memorandum book for the period. The lead seemed worth running down; and it was.

The story I now give you comes from Miss Mollie O'Meara, for thirty-five years head of the Butte Public Library and now retired. She is a charming and intelligent woman with whom I enjoyed talking, and I believe her to be wholly truthful; but I must remind you that her story is essentially incapable of being checked, since she had it from Minnie Green, now dead, who had it from Bridget, who died some years before Minnie.

Minnie had been Bridget's girlhood friend. When they first came to America together, Minnie was drawn to Montana, where a wave of Irish immigrants was being attracted to the copper mines. Bridget, less venturesome, stuck by the seaboard; but they kept in touch.

Yet they did not keep altogether in touch, for Bridget wrote Minnie nothing about her part in the Borden trial, only that she had come into a little money and was going home to buy a farm, which she proceeded to do. After some time in Ireland she wrote to tell Minnie that she had learned that lonely farming was not for her. After America, it was no life at all, and with all the young men crossing the ocean, Ireland was no place to find a husband. She had decided to come out to Montana.

This she did. In Butte she met and married a young smelter, had numerous children, died in her mid-eighties, and lies buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, in nearby Anaconda.

She kept her bargain of silence for a long time. She was quite old before she spoke of Lizzie Borden. She was gravely ill with pneumonia when she felt a desire to confide in Minnie. They were old friends, their later years had brought them close into each other's confidence, and, as Minnie told Miss O'Meara, it disturbed Bridget, lying there sick, to think that she had not been wholly candid about how she came by that windfall.

She asked Minnie to come over from Butte to see her, since she believed that she might not recover and she wanted a last sight of her dearest friend. And suddenly, her long reticence broke down and she began to talk.

She had always liked Lizzie, she told Minnie; she had always felt herself on the girl's side in the dimly understood troubles in that house. So she helped her out in the trial. And still she had not said one single word there was not true, not a word. Lizzie was thankful to her, and Lizzie's lawyer made her promise to stay in Ireland and never come back.

Well, so he'd let her change her mind, but not in any way that could do harm. Montana is a long way from Fall River, and she even took a different steamship line, one to New York, not Boston, and she came straight out to Montana by the first train, just like he wanted.

Bridget was very ill, the talking had tired her, and Minnie could get no more details that day. When she came back, Bridget had turned the corner toward recovery. She would only say that she was sorry she'd let out even so much, since she'd promised the lawyer never to say a word when she took the money, and she'd always liked Lizzie, too.

She asked Minnie not to talk about it.

Minnie did not, until after Bridget died. Miss O'Meara finally heard the story when Minnie, an old woman, turned up at the library to ask if they had any books about murders there, not the made-up kind but murders that really happened.

If some old Irishwoman from my part of the world had told some purported first-hand tale about the latter end of Bridget I should not have taken it seriously; where I come from, the Borden case is still in our bones, and an old woman might have improved on an old memory until she believed it herself---or, at least found it worth sharing.

But Butte is far from Fall River, and Minnie, who waited until Bridget died to tell what she knew, only told it then to explain why she wanted to find out something more about the affair. Minnie showed herself to Miss O'Meara as fond of Bridget and not at all disapproving---only curious; for Bridget had wanted to drop the subject and she had respected her wish, since a promise is, after all, a promise.

I find Minnie's little story convincingly meager and undecorated. I believe it. I am glad that at least one character in the Borden saga married and lived happily ever after-and glad that she had some twinges of conscience, too; that power did not corrupt her utterly."

(1) Edward D. Radin, Lizzie Borden: The Untold Story (New York. Simon and Schuster, 1963).

Just to muddy the waters a little more -- here's DeMille's take on Radin's version.

"The Anaconda Bridget Sullivan did indeed die in 1950 and caused a ripple in the press, but the Omnibus TV Research Department, then working on the Borden television drama, claimed she was not the Borden Bridget, the dates of her entry into the United States not checking out.  In any case, Radin's best efforts turned up only an old Irish woman who refused to talk."  (Agnes DeMille: Lizzie Borden, A Dance of Death p. 78)

Ok. who wants to call the Butte Public Library and ask if Mollie even existed!?

Let's be MORE confused...
LBQ, Fall/Winter, 1995, Geo. Quigley:
"THE BORDEN MAID:  MYTHS and LEGENDS

...On June 7, 1893, the third day of Lizzie Borden's trial...Bridget Sullivan testified she was 26 years old and had come to this country 'seven years previous'.  She would have been born in 1867.  Numerous reports have her dying in Montana at the age of 82.

The Clerk of the Court of ...Montana documented on June 20, 1905 John M. Sullivan and Bridget Sullivan were issued a marriage license.  According to this license, Bridget's birth date was Feb. 3, 1871.  If this woman died in 1948...she would have been 77 years old.

If the woman who died at the County Hospital in Butte, Montana in 1948, as recorded by the Montana Standard on August 31, 1975 was the same Bridget Sullivan, she would have been 81 years old.[??]  That would have made her 19 when she illegally arrived in Newport, R.I. in May of 1886.

The next document we have is from the Butte, Silver Bow Clerk and Recorder of the Courthouse in Butte, Montana.  It is Bridget Sullivan's death certificate which states she was born in 1875.

This makes her 73 years old.

...In this same woman's will, filed on April 14, 1948 in the Third District Court of the State of Montana, it states that Bridget Sullivan died on March 25, 1948.  The four-page certificate was made and witnessed on March 20, 1942.  Bridget states her age as 69.  When she died 6 years later, she would have been 75.

The next documentation we find is etched in stone...at Mount Olive Cemetery there lies Sullivan, John M. (1868-1939) and Bridget (1869-1948)...This woman is 79....

The 1900 U.S. Census lists a Bridget Sullivan of Anaconda, born in Ireland in 1868.  She would be 70 years old in 1948.(sic)

The 1910 U.S. Census records her as born in 1870...in 1948 she would be 68. (sic).

The 1920 U. S. Census has her date of birth as 1872.  She would be 64 in 1948. (sic).

In Who Were My Ancestors by Riobard O'Dwyer, N.T., the date of birth listed for Bridget Sullivan is March, 1864.  In this case she would be 84 in 1948.

All-told, this woman was born in 1864, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1875....

When she died she was ...[well, you get the message-kk]...Nine different dates of birth spanning 11 years and 10 ages at death spanning 2 decades..."

--the author goes on to say that Bridget never returned to Ireland, but went to Montana where she had siblings and married a different Sullivan, and had no babies.
He also says her name was Bridget Margaret Sullivan...from Alliheres Mines, County Cork, Ireland, and that he is working a book titled Lizzie and Bridget.
--really the math becomes unimportant in view of all the claims...

Bridget may turn out to be a far more mysterious figure than Lizzie!  I wonder how Len Rebello settled on the Anaconda, MT, Bridget Sullivan as the correct one.  I can't find the reference now (dratted index!), but I think he said one of the witnesses at Bridget's wedding was - Bridget Sullivan!  So there must have been an ample supply of Bridget Sullivans from whom to choose.  Incidentally, if Bridget's middle name was Margaret, you might think it would appear on her gravestone (or at least an initial), but it doesn't.  Of course, she might have followed the custom of using her maiden name as her middle name, which would have resulted in her initials being "B. S."  Since she married a Sullivan, I guess those were her initials anyway.  Might be kinda appropriate.

Kat: I have always been curious about Bridget's nickname, "Maggie."
In April 2001, in an effort to throw some light on the matter, I sent a message to Mr. Riobard Dwyer, well know Irish genealogist. I asked him to research the church records in Ireland for Bridget's birth certificate.  The following message was his reply:
"Your letter arrived this morning.  Bridget Sullivan was baptised on March 17th, 1864 by Fr. James Irwin P.P. Her parents were Eugene Sullivan & Margaret Leary of the townland of Billerough in the  Allihies (copper mines) Parish. Beara Peninsula, County Cork (South-West).  God parents were Denis Sullivan & Catherine Leary.  Bridget is given only the one Christian name in the Parish Records.  There are no Confirmation Records for those times." The message was signed by Mr. O'Dwyer. . .so. . Until someone in the future can unearth a Confirmation certificate, I'm afraid we're stuck with plain, old Bridget Sullivan.

Oh, my gosh!  Her Mother was named Margaret?
I suppose it could be likely Bridget's middle name was Margaret...  (Thanks, I won't assume, but that is interesting...)

About how old are babies when Baptized?
I was going to look up that date as her birthdate, and realized you specified Baptismal date.

So at Prelim. she wasn't 25/26 she was 28?

And yes, Edisto, I just read last night that Bridget Sullivan's brides-maid was Bridget Sullivan.  Rebello, pg. 66:
"Attendants for the newly-weds were Peter J. Sullivan and another woman named Bridget Sullivan who was a domestic for Judge George B. Winston."

(Message last edited Jul-26th-02  10:55 PM.)

I have nothing to add to this one, so, I've been keeping out of it!  But, just wanted to let you know that I've been following this confusing, but fascinating thread! 

In Diana's post she points out deMille / Radin have Bridget dying 1950.
The Brit's always get the American Crime Facts wrong, anyway.  Even if they are really talented in every other aspect.

LBQ, April, 1996
"What's In A Name", by Richard O'Dwyer / Maynard Bertolet

"BRIDGET SULLIVAN
Bridget emigrated to the United States in 1883 at the age of 19.  She was hired by the Borden family in 1890 and had worked for them 2 1/2 years when the Borden hatchet murders occurred.  Following this terrifying experience, she left Fall River and c. 1896 moved to Anaconda, Montana, nearby Butte, and became a part of the Allihies Mines community in residence.  Bridget married a Smelterman named John E. Sullivan who died in 1939.  Shortly after John's death, she moved in with her niece, Mrs. Mary (Bantry Tim) Sullivan at 112 East Wilman Street in Butte, Montana.  Mary was known in Butte as Dursey Mary, since she had been born on Dursey Island off the western tip of the Beara Peninsula.  Bridget died on Holy Thursday, March 25, 1948, at the age of 84.  She was buried in Mount Olive Cemetery in Anaconda.

[Bridget had] two grandnephews...Tim 'Sox' Sullivan...[his] older brother Bernard from Butte...[both] served in the U. S. Army..."

--we're not told whether this niece or these grandnephews are Her relations or her husband's...
--But apparently she was BORN in March, as well as being Baptized in MARCH, as well as DYING IN MARCH.  (Emma was born March 1st, and John Morse died March 1st.....)  Jeesh!

Is it unusual then or now for a woman to change the date of her birth? Or for a person to mis-remember when they are not pestered with such details in daily life, as today. No social security numbers either.
An interesting idea indeed! The Butte Bridget is not the Fall River maid?
Also, the Catholic tradition is to add a new name for Confirmation. So plain Bridget Sullivan could become Bridget Margaret Sullivan.