An Alternate Story of Hatchet Disposal

[Kat]

Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 2:35 am Post subject: “The Unknown Vagrant” [topic begun by snokkums]
Dec 13,2009

http://lizzieandrewborden.com/LBForum/v ... c&&start=0

-Transcribed by Kat Koorey and posted-

November 16, 1966
When I was a young woman, I heard the story of a man who perhaps at one time held the key to unlock the mystery of the Borden tragedy.

One day many years after Lizzie Borden of Fall River, Massachusetts, was tried for murder of her parents, I happened to meet a man who unexpectedly brought the whole gruesome tragedy into focus again.

I had stopped at a farm in the adjoining county to ask the owner if a new kind of squash he had grown that season would be satisfactory for me to plant in my own small vegetable garden another year.

He answered my query and then as his wife was still busy clearing up after dinner, he showed me over his place. We finally came to a standstill beside a fenced orchard where contented hens were pecking around beneath the trees. As we did so a little oldish man hurried past us with a pan of table scraps and called the biddies to a feast. I watched him casually. I never dreamed he could possibly have any connection with the unsolved Borden murder mystery, nor that, as long as I lived, I would never forget him.

You could see that he understood hens for they circled about him clucking companionably. "That fellow belongs on a chicken farm," observed my host. "But," he added, "It wouldn't work. He could feed the biddies and collect the eggs, but he couldn't kill a chicken for market, if his life depended on it."

The man had turned now and I could see his somewhat vacant but gentle face topped by straggly gray hair. There was a nervous twitch to his mouth, however, and an anxious look in his faded blue eyes that made me ask, "He's a bit nervous over something, isn't he?"

"Yeah, and I guess I'll let you hear what he told me about that last night. You aren't a blabbermouth, and it won't hurt to repeat it to you. He's been worse than he is today, for over a week, but he says he'll be better now and I sure hope so."

Just then the wife came out and we three went around to the front piazza. There the farmer nodded in my direction and said "I'm a telling her about Joe, Molly." Then he turned to our conversation and went on.

"I've always called my men 'Joe' no matter what their real names are. Well, this Joe, every night when we'd finish supper and sit at the table to talk about what had happened during the day, would get up and go into the sitting room to glance over the paper. Then he'd start up to bed for he was tired early since he got up at four o'clock every morning along with me.

"One night he seemed terribly jittery and upset after he'd read the news, and when he left I looked to see what it was that made him feel that way. All that I could come across that was unusual was a piece about the Lizzie Borden case.

" 'Course that was a terrible affair, but it happened so long ago it didn't seem as if anyone ought to be upset about it now. Well Joe, he got more jittery every day. His hands shook, his legs wobbled and he seemed in a daze. "What's the matter, Joe?" I finally asked. "You sick?"

"He said he'd tell me about everything sometime, and then he'd feel better and last night he did just that, and it's quite a yarn. Now I'm the jittery one. He feels better because he's got it off his chest but my wife and I, we don't know what we ought to do about him."

"Tell me and let me share the responsibility," I said.

The farmer looked relieved and in a few moments began again.

"Joe was the runt of a big family that had a good old New England name. They lived on a farm and his brothers and sisters made fun of him because he was too spleeny to do heavy work. He didn't go far in school either. He grew up a loner, for the others were so much stronger and smarter than he was.

"When he was twenty-one his father gave him a little money for a start and he walked to the nearest city. That city was Fall River and here he looked about for a job. He was lucky too. You wouldn't expect jobs to be plentiful in a mill city for someone that could only do light farm labor.

"But there were a good many people there who didn't want a man all day every day, to look after their places, but would like a handy man to do jobs now and then as needed- clean a stable, curry and harness a horse, cut grass, weed a flower bed- you know what I mean.

"Joe was just right for such things and he always kept busy. One man let him sleep in a room over a stable. Cooks were always giving him leftovers to eat, so his living expenses were small and though he didn't charge much for what he did, he got along fine.

"One of the places he worked at, he told me, was the Borden's, and here a curious thing happened. He sort of fell in love with the daughter Lizzie. She was older than he was, but she was so domineering and strong, where he was shy and weak, he thought her wonderful. Said she was a good looker too, and her not being a favorite in her family, just as he hadn't been in his family, made her seem closer to him. He never told her how he felt but he was so glad to run errands for her, I guess she knew she had him wound round her finger, and figured he'd do anything she wanted him to and not ask questions.

"One day, as he was putting litter he'd raked up into a barrel to cart away, Lizzie came to the kitchen door and beckoned him over. She was wiping of a hatchet with a piece of rag. She handed the hatchet to him and told him to put it in the barn. He saw nothing strange about the request or about her wiping it off. Everyone wiped off used tools in those days to keep them in good condition. Tools cost money and money was scarce.

"She tossed the rag into the midst of the litter in the barrel and then said,'Wait, I've got something else to throw away.' She went into the house and in a few minutes came out and handed him a bundle wrapped in paper and tied around with a string.

"He put the hatchet in the barn and the bundle in the barrel in a wheelbarrow, and soon was trundling his load down the street to a lot where fill was needed. He felt proud he could show Miss Lizzie he could handle a man-sized load even though he knew it was light weight.

"After he'd dumped the stuff, he had to rest awhile, and then finding he was not only hot and tired but faint, as it was noon, he felt in his pocket for the quarter Mr. Borden had given him that morning for what he'd done. He'd spent ten cents of it for two fresh crullers and a glass of milk at a little shop he knew about.

"When he'd eaten he took the barrel and the wheelbarrow back to the Borden barn and put them where they belonged. He noticed people going in and out of the house more than usual. 'What's going on,' he asked a woman he'd worked for as she went along the walk.

" 'Abby and Andrew Borden have been murdered,' and added,'with a hatchet,' though she could hardly speak for she was crying.

"Joe said he felt sick all at once and as if he'd slump down right there. He couldn't believe Mr. and Mrs. Borden could have been murdered. And with a hatchet! Why such things hadn't happened since Indian times. If anyone was around killing with hatchets, he'd better hide the Borden hatchet out of sight. He didn't want any more murders. He went in the barn, took the hatchet and put it behind the horse stall. As he did so he remembered Miss Lizzie. She'd handed it to him that morning. What had she been using it for? Not to kill her father and mother. Oh no, he was sure of that, though he knew she hated them at times and she did have a terrible temper.

"He stumbled out into the yard. A policeman passed by and greeted him with a sober nod. Would the police question him later as to what he'd done every minute that morning? Suddenly he remembered Miss Lizzie cleaning off the hatchet with the rag. Was there blood on the rag? He recalled the bundle. Were there bloody things in the bundle? He must go down to the rubbish lot and find out. If there were bloody things he would have to take them to the police and tell how they got there. He couldn't believe Miss Lizzie had done the killings but if she had she must pay for doing them. Would they hang her? He shuddered. All the same he must find out before the police asked him questions. He hurried away to where he had dumped the litter.

"When he reached there he found he was too late. During the noon hour one or two cartloads of clutch had been dumped right on top of his little pile. His was buried so deep he could not possibly unearth the rag or the bundle.

' 'Guess it's a sign I'd better mind my own business,' he thought. In a way he felt better. He wouldn't have to be the one to find out for sure if Miss Lizzie was the killer or not. The police would come up with the murderer. He sure hoped they would. He liked Mr. and Mrs. Borden. He couldn't bear to think they hadn't been let to live out their lives peacefully.

"He went to his room after that and flung himself, spent and shaken, on his cot. For a long time afterward he did his usual work but he felt half-sick and stunned.

"When the Superior Court trial took place a feeling of guilt developed in his mind and he worried. He should have told the police at the beginning. They would have known how to get at the rag and bundle. Now rain and snow and still more clutch had fallen on his rubbish pile. It would do no good to tell about it now. Bloodstains would be washed away and everything be a sodden mass. Miss Lizzie's acquittal and the fact that nobody at all had been convicted of the murders bothered him no end. He could not bear to stay in Fall River any longer and made up his mind to leave it for all time. He especially did not want to chance meeting Miss Lizzie.

Of his life after that, the hired man told the farmer little. He never stayed long in one place and became a pathetic drifter. He'd never gone hungry however; there was always a meal for an odd-jobs man. In summer he often slept on haymows or in the lee of a haystack in a field. In cold weather he looked for work where he could stay in a house nights, though a barn with cows in it was always warm. So the hired man, after he got started, had talked on and on. He never mentioned names of people or places though. Folks were always good to him, he said.

"And now," concluded the farmer, "what shall I do with him? Turn him over to the authorities? Their questions and reporters would drive him crazy or kill him; I don't know which. HE couldn't be called guilty of doing any wrong but concealing possible evidence even if they believed what he said. There'd be no way today to disprove or prove his story either. The wife and I thought we might tell an old judge that comes here summers, all about it. What do you think?" It seemed a good idea. They could abide by the judge's wisdom.

But there was no need to tell anyone. Some extrasensory perception must have made the hired man sure that the stranger who saw him feed the hens was hearing his story, and he didn't know what the consequences would be. That night he quietly assembled his few belongings, then stole down stairs and out into the night, completely vanishing. The farmer never saw him again .

We all wondered what had become of him. Could he have got to a box car on the tracks not far away, and slipping within its safety, later been whisked out to the midwest? Could he have reached the waterfront and boarded a packet that had a soft-hearted skipper? Could he have tramped along woods roads to the cranberry bogs and joined the pickers there? No one ever knew. Joe just couldn't be located.

Do you believe his story? It was plausible.

Do you believe he was a crackpot? Perhaps. He had been through a great deal.

Whatever you believe, I am sure you feel, as we did, that wherever he was, someone would look out for him and care for him to the very end.

It's half a century since I was told I was not a blabbermouth but I feel I'm not betraying a confidence now in telling the story of this pitiable, bewildered man, who tried tried so hard to be independent and make his own living and do what was right. I can never forget him.

Sincerely,
Marion Hicks Campbell

----from Yankee Magazine. The chapter was called "The Unfathomable Borden Riddle" by John U. Ayotte. The editors added this note after reprinting the article:

Yankee Magazine originally published this story [the Ayotte chapter] in August 1966. Soon after the magazine appeared on the newstands, we received a flood of mail related to the article. Certain letters offered surprising testimony- some of it firsthand, most of it hearsay, all of it interesting. Here's one that reads something like an epilogue.

----This was the introduction to the "letter" printed that is transcribed here

[Kat]

Whenever I read this I think of "slow" Joseph Morse, Mary Louisa Morrison Morse's son, and the cousin of Lizzie and Emma, who lived in Fall River.

[camgarsky4]

Thanks for posting Kat. Based on this story and Lizzie/Emma's actions, apparently it was copasetic to depersonalize names!
Maids were Maggie and handymen were Joe!

[Reasonwhy]

Whenever I read this I think of "slow" Joseph Morse, Mary Louisa Morrison Morse's son, and the cousin of Lizzie and Emma, who lived in Fall River.

Would you tell us more about Joseph Morse, please? I know nothing about him…

[Kat]

He's in Rebello and in Morse's will with his sister Ora. He was also in Emma's will. Morse cousins married and had these two children.
Do ya'll have access to Emma's will?
Here is the pertinent paragraph

TWELFTH: I give and bequeath all the rest and residue of the property, real and personal, over which I have any power of testamentary disposition at the time of my decease, to said B.M.C. Durfee Safe Deposit and Trust Company of Fall River, Massachusetts, and to said Preston H. Gardner of Providence, Rhode Island, hereinafter called my said trustees, IN TRUST, nevertheless, to invest the same and keep the same invested, and to collect all of the income thereof, and after paying from such income all expenses of administering this trust properly chargeable to income, to pay from the net income (in quarterly payments) the annual sum of Two Hundred Dollars ($200) to my cousin, Joseph Luther Morse, if and so long as he shall survive me and divide the remaining or net income (as the same is hereinafter defined) into five (5) equal shares, and to pay the same over bi-annually, or oftener as in the discretion of my said trustees they may deem best, in the manner and for the purposes hereinafter set forth.

Profile: Joseph Luther Morse (1864-1951) was the son of Joseph Luther and Mary Louisa Morrison (Morse) Morse. Joseph was married to Fannie Morse. Mr. Morse was a member of the Narragansett Lodge of Masons, worked for many years at Covel and Osborn Hardware Co. and later operated a doorstop service. ( hydraulic device that prevented a door from slamming shut) He was a distant relative of Emma and Lizzie. He resided in Fall River for many years at 127 Hanover Street. Mr. Morse died in Fall River at the age of 86 on February 6,1951, and is buried at Oak Grove Cemetery. There were no immediate survivors at the time of his death.

[Kat]

Handwritten family info
plzclickonpic/ also save to your personal files

[Kat]

I'm not saying he is this Joseph in the story-- just that I think of him when I read it. The topic link within the post includes interesting member's opinions about the story.

[Reasonwhy]

Oh, I see why you may link him to the Joseph of the article, now: from the family notes, “may have been retarded.” So, he would have been 28 at the time of the killings, and did live in Fall River. It’s mentioned in Rebello that only in his later years does he go into the door stop business, so maybe he was a handyman in his younger years. If so, could well have been one to the Bordens, too.

But why would Lizzie have had him put the hatchet into the barn, rather than dispose of it as she had him do the bundle? Well, we don’t know how forensically knowledgeable she was; perhaps she did not know it could be tested for any remaining blood. Intriguing story with the link to Joseph Morse!

[Kat]

I "think" the doorstop business means he was a doorman. Remember those?
Anyway, just to be clear- not a "link" to Joseph Morse, but rather "I think of Joseph Morse." I don't wish to create any new myths.

But since I have access to odd tidbits, like bringing to members attention the Henry Wells story in the FRHS Quarterly, I hope to expose ya'll to other sources, that you may not have.

[Reasonwhy]

But remember this part, from Rebello:
“…and later operated a doorstop service. ( hydraulic device that prevented a door from slamming shut)…”

I also wonder for how many years he worked at the hardware co., as it sounds like the handyman from the story was a vagrant. And how does that work with having had a wife? Maybe this was before or after the marriage?

Yes, I understand, just giving us alternatives via other sources. And I vastly appreciate it!

Starting to think these secondary sources, particularly the oral history, contain fragments of truth mixed with gossip or things garbled in the re-telling. It is difficult to determine even what is likely vs. what is far-fetched, sometimes.

[Kat]

Well, a doorman can stop a door from closing, reassuring that the hydraulic device works properly, and can also be sure that it opens...

Anyway, I'm just pushing a limit...and yes exactly the possible mixing of truth and gossip.
Ya'll are at a level where you can easily tell the difference, and then we can have " fun with newspapers!"

[Reasonwhy]

Yes, both things can be true of a doorman. And, yes, fun with newspapers. Think I told you my husband was a journalist, and he guffawed looking through the Sourcebook. He said he could not believe all of the access the reporters had to the scene, just tromping on through, and how much latitude they took in writing their stories. Think he was jealous of them!

[Kat]

Like that reporter who said he actually got Borden blood on his shoes at the house!

Camgarsky says he was also in the newspaper business.

[camgarsky4]

Reason, see what ur husband thinks, but even in 1892, I think articles with direct and attributed quotes were handled more delicately than an opinion piece presented as a news article or a sensational writing.

Kat- u mentioned that Harry studied the newspapers. Which papers or reporters did he view as more solid and reliable?

[PossumPie]

The whole thing reads like an urban legend. It is much too polished and every detail fits together. Why would a woman who just killed both parents and would face the death penalty if caught casually hand the smoking gun hatchet to a stranger and say, take care of this for me. Walking casually in broad daylight wiping off a bloody ax? "Here my good man put this away." Then throwing the bloody dress out in the open on a pile. I'd sooner believe a stranger sneaked in and killed them than that she simply handed over the weapon in broad daylight. If the man were real at all, and if he were mentally challenged, that may explain why he fantasized the entire interaction.

[Kat]

Reason, see what ur husband thinks, but even in 1892, I think articles with direct and attributed quotes were handled more delicately than an opinion piece presented as a news article or a sensational writing.

Kat- u mentioned that Harry studied the newspapers. Which papers or reporters did he view as more solid and reliable?

We were all agreed to be careful with newspapers as sources, and also noted that they would steal a story from each other, rewrite or rearrange it a bit and publish, even dross and drivel.
But we needed newspapers to get nuance and we were starved for descriptions!

Harry loved to read the old newspapers with his morning coffee! Every page, just like living in 1892-1893...
Anyway, he liked Julian Ralph.