Neilson Caplainby Neilson Caplain
First published in August/September, 2006, Volume 3, Issue 3, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.
Lizzie Borden had words with her sister. It was the week after Lizzie had ventured to examine the shops on North Main Street. Now she wanted to do the same on South Main Street. Emma scolded, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. People still stare and snicker whenever you are recognized.”
“Oh, Emma”, Lizzie said, “You are such a timid soul. It’s time you bought some colorful dresses, not the black that you wear night and day. I have business to do downtown and I might stop in at some of the stores.”
On her dying bed their mother had asked Emma to take care of her little sister. Emma tried her best, but Lizzie was strong-minded and usually had her way. They had their differences but the two women lived amicably in the same house. “After all,” Lizzie said, “Emma supported me at the trial and she did pay half of the trial expenses.”
And so she ordered her coachman to drive her to the corner of Court Square and Main Street. Lizzie was excited—she loved shopping. She frequently went to the stores in Boston and Providence. “And now,” she thought, “let‘s see what Fall River has to offer! I’ll walk along the East side of the street first, it’s nice and shady there.”
Passing Court Square she was reminded that the Fall River Globe was headquartered there. “It is a hateful newspaper,” she thought, “printing scurrilous articles each August 4th, intimating my guilt on that day four years ago. And that obnoxious reporter, what’s his name? Oh, yes, Edwin Porter. I fixed his wagon. Not many people got to read the book he wrote after the trial!”
Porter had a lot to tell about Bridget. “Some nasty people are convinced that I paid her off. Let them gossip from here to eternity, never will they learn the real truth. I wonder where Bridget is now? Some are saying that she moved to the wild and woolly West.”
At the corner of Bedford and South Main she at once recognized the Pocasset Bank sharing space with the Citizens Savings Bank at Number 6. The upper floor of the building was occupied by offices. One of these was the well-known lawyer Marcus G.B. Swift. “He was the attorney for that turncoat, Alice Russell, the blabbermouth who testified about the dress that I burned in the kitchen fire. His house is next to mine on French Street but we never meet, and that’s all right with me.”
At Number 14 next door was the Union Savings Bank and the National Union Bank. Lizzie stopped in to make a deposit of dividends she recently received from cotton mill companies. She exchanged pleasant words with Mr. A.G. Hart, the treasurer of the Savings Bank. He had talked with her father the morning of that fateful day of mayhem and murder. Mr. Hart was a pallbearer at Father’s funeral.
Jerome C. Borden was Treasurer of the Union Savings Bank. Although he kept his distance since the “not guilty” verdict, Lizzie wanted belatedly to thank him for his testimony for her defense at the trial in 1893. He was not in his office.
She was approaching City Hall. Lizzie admired the granite structure with the four massive columns gracing the portico, and the clock tower rising high above it.
As she walked past, bitter memories rose like bile in her throat. In that building the police had quarters on the third floor. Vividly she called to mind the horrible grilling she received from Assistant Marshall John Fleet in her bedroom on the day of the murders. “How could I ever forget? That awful person was convinced that I killed my father and stepmother, and so did the whole police department. It is good that Fleet discredited himself at the trial. He was unable to explain the missing axe handle. Perhaps I could have enlightened him, but that’s my secret to keep.”
“I can’t forget Officer William Medley, either. Imagine him implying that I was not in the barn because he saw no footprints in the dusty floor. Well, that boy Brownie made him look silly. Brownie, a neighborhood lad, was investigating with his friend up there. Nobody knows anymore whether the floor was dusty or not.”
Dismissing evil thoughts, Lizzie walked across Pocasset Street where she noted the Pocasset Building (#62), which occupied the whole short block between Market Square and Pleasant Street. Downstairs was Talbot & Co., men’s clothes, and upstairs the offices of several lawyers and professional men. The entrances to the offices were on Pleasant Street.
The window display at Talbot’s made her think of her father’s clothes. “He wore a black suit and Congress boots day after day, never made a change a soul could see. He always looked like the undertaker he once was.”
Lizzie’s thoughts wandered. “My father was a skinflint. He insisted on living in a house with stables up the street. No electricity and not even gas light as the houses on the Hill enjoyed. We had just candles and lanterns to show the way. But, come to think of it, he was good to me—sent me to Europe for the Grand Tour a few years ago, allowed me to have nice clothes and even gave me a weekly allowance.”
“But why did he marry that fat old Abby? Was it because he needed a housekeeper? Anyway, Assistant Marshall Fleet referred to Abby as my mother. I told him the truth—she is not my mother. And I told my cloak maker, Mrs. Gifford, that Mrs. Borden was a mean, good for nothing thing.”
By this time she came to Pleasant Street and crossed it to the other side. Lizzie now faced the Academy of Music (#102). It was known as the Borden Block, having been built by other members of the Borden family when she was a little girl.
The Academy theatre was on the second floor. Many times Lizzie had trudged up the stairs to gape at the star actors and the elaborate stage presentations. She so loved the theater and often now attended plays in Boston and Providence.
There were offices on the third floor as well as on the second. They were occupied by lodge rooms, lawyers, and insurance companies, among others. From newspaper notices she knew that Robert Dunning and Franklin Miller had rooms there. They were well known artists of the Fall River School style of painting.
In the building facing on the street, were retail stores. At Number 68 was the Globe Clothing Company catering to the men of the city. At Number 80 was the Trafton & Anthony Hardware Store, followed by another men’s clothing emporium, Charles T. Sherer & Company (# 84). The rest of the Borden Block was taken up by John M. Deane’s grocery shop (#90-94), the leading one downtown. Mr. Deane was a Civil War hero. It was the last store in the Borden Block.
As Lizzie ambled past the grocery store, along came a group of giggling boys and girls. Lizzie tried to hide her face but they recognized her and recited the familiar jingle, “Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty-whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.”
Lizzie stumbled along and she murmured to herself, “Silly children! Little do they know about what really happened, and I’m not telling! No, not to anybody!”
She now found herself in front of a men’s wear store, The J.B. Barnaby Co. at Number 98. Next she passed by John H. Boone’s Tailoring Shop (#106). There were two shoe shops at Numbers 112 (Alexis Lessard), and 118 (Albert S. French), and in between, still another clothing store for men, David S. Boas’ place at Number 114.
Mary J. Higgins was a dressmaker at Number 120. Thinking about dressmakers, Lizzie said to herself, “I still have my needlework done by Mrs. Mary Raymond. She lives on Pine Street. She made the Bedford cord dress that I burned in the kitchen stove. It was soiled with paint. Hah!! Was it really just paint?”
As Lizzie walked along, she noticed that Thomas F. Keough was a Tailor at Number 120, George Morrow sold butter and eggs at Number 122, Fawcett & Barlow, shoe store (#128), Henry Courtemanche, Tailor (#130), and Daniel F. Sullivan, boots and shoes (#132).
Number 134 consisted of offices for: William Pritchard, Insurance; Stebbins & Eagan, Dentists; Dillon & Barry, Tailors; and rooms for the Weavers Progressive Association. There followed an Apothecary, Peter A. Collet & Co. (#136), followed by M.T. Hudner, provisions dealer (#150).
Lizzie now found herself at Borden street. She was thrilled to have a street named for her ancestors. That was as far South as she wanted to go. But she thought for a moment of Jonathan Clegg. He rented a store that she owned on the next block, Number 224 South Main. Her father had talked with Clegg on the morning her father left this world. And she remembered the man with the odd name who worked on renovating the premises. “It was Shortsleeves, wasn’t it?”
“And down there is Smith’s drug store, Number 307, where Eli Bence said I tried to purchase poison. Maybe so and maybe not, that’s my secret to tell or not to tell,” Lizzie smiled smugly.
Lizzie was tired—oh so tired. “I can’t go a step further,” she mumbled. “I’ll take the trolley back to Bedford street to where my carriage is waiting. I really enjoyed this excursion and will do it again on the West side of South Main Street on another day.”
