Map of Spring St & Second St.

[Nadzieja]

When I read testimony about any of the locations I have the map in front of me from The Hatchet - Vol. 5 No. 1, Issue 21

It helps me visualize where exactly people are talking about and where they were in relation to the Borden house. In the prelim testimony of Patrick Doherty, he speaks about notifying the marshal. p 256

Q - You went down to the station and notified the marshal?
A - No Sir, I ran around the corner to a telephone, half a minute run from there.
Q - What store was that?
A - Mr. Gorman's, the undertaker. Then I came back.
Q - Where was the telephone?
A - Right around the corner of Spring street, just the second door, a little store there.

I don't see a Gormann's undertaker listed on Spring St., or am I misunderstanding this? The only Gormann's I found was Gorman's paint store which is actually on Second St.

[Harry]

The map in Rebello (page 563) shows a paint store at 103 Second St.

When I did my listing of who lived on Second St. I show the following for #103 taken from the 1892 City Directory:

Gray, John W., painter, 103 Second, house 26 Warren – p258

The same directory, page 253, shows:

Gorman, James J., manager, 3 Spring, house 81 Third

It doesn't say what he was manager of. His place of business would have been the #3 Spring address.

Their was an undertaker on Spring St., McDermott & Co. at #19 who had a phone (p782 City Directory).

[Harry]

I did a little more digging and found these ads in the back of the directory.





From the second ad Gorman was the manager of the #3 location. Why there were 2 Mcdermott funeral houses on Spring St. I have no idea.

[Shelley]

I see the phone numbers are different- so it may be that the office and "warerooms" which would have been casket and fabric display and burial paraphanalia families would visit to make arrangements and "pick out" coffins and such were in a different building . The stable (where I imagine the hearse horses and coffin carriages were kept is listed at 138 Second Street) in case someone died in the night, there was someone to answer the bell. James J. Gorman appears to be the manager there.
I get the idea Michael and Patrick McDermott could be personally reached to make arrangements for the body or whatever at the 19 Spring Street number, where perhaps there was located an embalming facility, or perhaps the two men, probably brothers or cousins, or even father and son, themselves lived there. Just my guess on it. Harry- when do you see a city morgue listed in directories?

[mbhenty]

Yes, If we read the two advertisements above we may learn something.

On another thread we had a discussion about Andrew Borden being an undertaker and what exactly it was he did. My contention at the time was that Borden was an undertaker and not an embalmer. At that time the term "undertaker" meant "funeral director" or one who takes on the duties of walking the patrons through.

My argument at that time was that Borden never chopped off people's legs to fit them into a coffin or embalmed anyone as can be viewed in the movie "The Legend of Lizzie Borden".

If we study the add you will find that notation is made to "Undertakers and Embalmers" and later changed and referred to as "Funeral Directors and Embalmers.

Thus, Andrew Borden's duties were as a Funeral Director (if we can assume that) of sorts when he was in the business of selling Caskets. Not an embalmer.

[Nadzieja]

Thanks for posting the ads Harry, I've never seen any like that before. I think Shelley is right, one bldg for the caskets and the other for the hearses. And you would need someone to take care of one of the buildings and one to take care of family details.
The question about the morgue is interesting, when did the cities or towns start doing that?