Kerry Street

[LonnieDB]

Hi All,
I'm interested in the house where Sarah died, Kerry St. Does anyone have any information, was Andrew practicing as an undertaker from there? Was there a workshop in the house?

Thanks in advance
Lon

[camgarsky4]

Lon, I think you mean Ferry st?

[mbhenty]

Hello LonnieDB

I think you will find your stay here on the forum very informative with members who scrub the Borden world from scalp to toe.

As for the Ferry Street house there is just about nothing known about it other than the fact that Andrew Borden owned it and lived there. There is nothing that we know about the building itself or the property other than what see in photos. And I know of only one photo of the Ferry Street house that exists. And that was taken from Edwin Porter's 1893 account in the book The Fall River Tragedy.. So we know nothing about how Andrew or his father kept the building.

One striking aspect is how much the Ferry Street house is similar to Second Street. Same type building from the same era. Greek Revival. But with the door on the opposite side. You can almost guess why Lizzie had no interest in it.

Two points about Andrew's career when he lived on Ferry Street: At the time embalming bodies was not done, or was it normal practice. The procedure or exercise of embalming was not used until the later part of the 1860s or became common until the late 1870s. The operation of embalming had its beginnings with the Civil War and its purpose was for the delivery of bodies of loved ones, for the long trip home, to family who wanted their relative buried close by.

And though Borden was an undertaker, he was not a mortician. There was a difference, as there is today between undertaker and mortician. I remember talking to an undertaker in Fall River back in the 1980s. He said that though Fall River had over ten funeral parlors and multiple undertakers, there were only two morticians that prepared the bodies for burial. Ugh? Undertakers only undertook the policies and transactions of dealing with death. And being a furniture maker and having a furniture store, Borden supplied the chairs or furnishings needed to conduct a wake. He never embalmed bodies. That is true only in fiction or folklore.

Now, below is a photo of the Ferry Street house. And a portion of map taken from the 1877 Fall River map. I am certain that I can identify the Ferry Street house on that map since I know the outlay of the landscape and just where it stood. Now, in the middle photo of the map... if you look closely you can see Ferry Street just to the left of Colombia street, very tight, and running parallel to it. In that map you can see the Colombia Street school on Columbia Street, which stood where the Fall River Historical Society Building once stood before it was moved to Rock Street. Also, lower right is the Santo Christo Catholic Church, the church which my parents were members. Now just about in the center of the photo is a house on Ferry Street with a small front yard. It is the only house on Ferry Street, in the photo, that has a front yard and is set back just a little from the street. You can make out the extension to the building in both the photo of the house and the map.

Interesting, heh?

[LonnieDB]

Wow, what a wealth of knowledge you have mbhenty, thank you for sharing.
Do you think Andrew would have been building the caskets?
I assume the reason Lizzie wasn't interested, to which you refer, was the lack of indoor plumbing, and that it wasn't on 'the hill'? Have I picked up the correct end of that stick?

[LonnieDB]

Lon, I think you mean Ferry st?

Thanks for the correction

[mbhenty]

Yes, it is very likely that Borden built his own coffins. But he also sold coffins from other companies.

Below is an excerpt from Edward Radin's book:

On the back page of that same issue there was an ad, long familiar to readers, that ran week in and week out, year after year, in which the firm of Borden & Almy, undertakers, extolled the remarkable virtues of Crane's Patent Casket Burial Cases, for which they were exclusive agents. The local firm guaranteed that these superior coffins would preserve and keep intact the remains of a beloved far longer than any other casket. How anyone could possibly verify such a claim was not explained, but this play on morbid fears and the desire of many people to delay the natural return to dust was most successful.


I remember reading somewhere that someone asked Andrew Borden if these coffins really worked, to which he replied, "I have yet to receive a complaint." Not certain where I read it. Unlikely he ever said that. But funny.