Mondo Lizzie Borden

UPDATE: The roof has been completed on the old Borden farm on Gardner’s Neck Road in Swansea, MA.

These photos of the Borden farm on Gardner’s Neck Road in Swansea were taken today.

Hatchet author Annette Holba, Ph.D. has a new book out titled Lizzie Borden Took an Axe, or Did She? A Rhetorical Inquiry. I am super excited by this publication! Here is what the amazon site has to say about the book:

We’ve heard the rhyme: Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks, When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one. But what do we really know about this infamous case of murder that occurred over one hundred years ago? Lizzie Borden Took an Axe, or Did She? is a collection of essays, written by a teacher-scholar (and a former Prosecutor’s Detective), that that explore various interesting questions that have virtually remained unexplained for over one hundred years. What was Lizzie Borden’s sexual orientation? Why did Lizzie Borden change her name after her public acquittal? What is the value of Edwin Porter’s The Fall River Tragedy then and now? What role did media and gender play in this public spectacle? What was the relationship between John Morse and Bridget Sullivan? These and other questions are explored through rhetorical, narrative, and common sense theories to help us critically engage this captivating case. Whether you are reading this book for a class or reading it for fun outside of an academic setting, this book was written to engage the story of Lizzie Andrew Borden from refreshing new perspectives.

Mine is on the way and you can order yours here:

This is not a joke. Today, while goofing around in Salem, MA, and having my photo taken at the new Elizabeth Montgomery statue at the corner of Washington and Essex Streets, I happened to saunter down a pedestrian shopping walkway. There, on the right, I saw her. Lizzie Borden! And here is what I saw.

I can’t wait to see what this is all about. But when does the summer start in New England? Inquiring minds need to know!

Wouldn’t it be great if something like this actually existed?

The Preliminary Hearing in the Lizzie Borden Case (PearTree Press, 2005), by Harry Widdows, Stefani Koorey, Ph.D., and Kat Koorey, is now available for sale through the Fall River Historical Society.

You can purchase it when you visit or by phone at 508-679-1071.

From the Foreword:

The Preliminary Hearing phase of the Commonwealth vs. Lizzie A. Borden began on Thursday, August 25 and lasted seven days, through Thursday, September 1, 1892. The judge who presided over this “probable cause hearing” was Josiah Coleman Blaisdell, the same judge that had officiated at the Inquest into the deaths of Andrew J. and Abby Borden.

The court stenographer, Miss Annie White, made only two copies of her report of the hearing; one was given to Hosea M. Knowlton, for the prosecution, and the other to Andrew J. Jennings, for the defense. This latter copy is the only one known to have survived. It has recently been discovered that this copy, one that we have all come to know as the official copy of the proceeding, is, in fact, both incomplete and inaccurate in regards to the order of witnesses, having been altered and edited for some long-forgotten reason. According to painstaking research by the editor of the Lizzie Borden Quarterly, Maynard F. Bertolet, there are major discrepancies between the order of the pages in the Preliminary Hearing and the events as they actually occurred.

Much to the chagrin and frustration of those who study the primary documents in the Borden case, the Jennings’s copy of the preliminary trial transcript is missing several rather important items, including the testimony of Thomas Keiran and Annie White, the reading of the Lizzie Borden inquest testimony by Mr. Knowlton, and all events from the seventh and final day of the trial—defense arguments, prosecution arguments, Judge Blaisdell’s summation, and the verdict.

This version of the Preliminary Hearing is unique. It combines a number of transcriptions from various sources in an effort to reproduce, as accurately and authentically as possible, the day-by-day proceedings of this all-important legal event in the history of the Borden murders of 1892. Since the Jennings copy has sections out of sequence, as well as an error in numbering where the text jumps from page 34 to 45, this new print version has sought to rectify these discrepancies in the interest of providing researchers with a readable copy.

Intrepid Reporter found this one for us.

If the paranormal folks want us to buy into the haunted stuff, they better start getting their facts right! This one is pretty well overflowing with mistakes. Count them with me! I have a total of 10 in less than 10 minutes.

For those without cable TV, here is the entire episode of Monster Quest when they visited the Lizzie Borden B&B, courtesy of ParanormRUs and YouTube.

Maplecroft, Lizzie Borden’s home following her acquittal for the double murder of her father and stepmother, is once again on the market. According to the current owner, Robert Dube, he is asking $680,000 for the 14 room, 4.5 bath home at 306 French Street.

The phone number on the photo below is from the last time he wanted to sell. If you are interested in purchasing this home, you can call the owner at 508-673-8088.

The Lizzie Borden B&B is once again holding an eBay auction for a stay in the Morse room (the room where Abby Borden was murdered) for August 4, 2008. The Fall River Herald recently ran a piece on the internet sale. The piece is by Deborah Allard.

Here is a link to the eBay sale. As of today, the highest bid was $275. With only four days to go.

Something had to mark the anniversary of Lizzie Borden’s death on June 1. She died at home at her Maplecroft mansion 81 years ago in 1927. She was 66.

The Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast decided it would put a night in its John Morse room up for bid on eBay. And, it’s not just any night; it is the night, and there is never a vacancy. The lucky bidder will spend the night of the gruesome murders in the room where Abby Borden was found face down in a pool of blood on Aug. 4, 1892.

Andrew was found downstairs, dead on the parlor sofa. His blood had seeped down to the basement.
Who would want to spend such a night, or any night, in the Borden house?

Let the bidding begin.

“It’s sitting at $275,” said Lee Ann Wilber, house manager.

Last year, the room went to Don Sykes of Pennsylvania, who bid just under $1,000. Sykes, a Borden buff visited the B&B again just two weeks ago.

“Everyone waited (to bid) until the last day last year,” Wilber said. “The last half-hour, it went up $500.”

Wilber started the auction last year because she had so many calls from people wanting to book the room on the murder night, that she thought the fairest way of handling it was to give it to the highest bidder.

Morton Gould wrote the score for Agnes de Mille’s Fall River Legend ballet. He died in 1996. This biography details his impressive achievements.

A lovely set of images from Fall River are on MBGRIGBY’s Flickr site. Watch them as a slide show and you will have a wonderful adventure!

Link.