Meet the Emerys of Fall River

by Leonard Rebello

First published in April/May, 2008, Volume 5, Issue 2, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.

Photography by Michael Brimbau. Images courtesy of the Swansea Historical Society.

One hundred and sixteen years later, Borden historians, scholars, and enthusiasts are getting a rare view of never before seen photographs recently uncovered at the Swansea Historical Society. In addition to the young Lizzie image, detailed in the last issue of this journal, the Swansea collection includes family albums that contain photographs of Morse, Mason, and Gardner family members—as well as Daniel Littlefield Emery (1861-1950) and his wife Lydia Elizabeth Emery (1862/1863), a relative of John Morse (Fall River Daily Globe, Friday August 5, 1892). While we may have heard about Daniel and Lydia, we have never seen their images before now.

Daniel was the son of Eliphalet P. Emery (1826-1913) and Cassandra E. Littlefield Emery (June 7, 1828 – ?). His wife, Lydia, whom he married in 1881 in Swansea, Massachusetts, was the daughter of William Mason and Amanda Maria Gardner Mason of Swansea. Lydia was the niece of John Vinnicum Morse’s brother, William Bradford Morse, and a first cousin to Annie E. (February, 1874) and William M. Morse (March, 1876), who were visiting that day. Charles Emery, the son of Lydia and Daniel, and seven years old at the time of the murders, was their second cousin.

It was the Emerys whom John Vinnicum Morse, Lizzie’s uncle, visited the morning he left 92 Second Street at 8:45 AM. (Fall River Evening News, Friday, August 5, 1892: c 2), leaving Lizzie, Bridget, and the elder Bordens to attend to their affairs. Andrew asked him that morning to return after his visit to the Emerys—on August 4, 1892, the day that Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered. The night before, perhaps in the sitting room, Andrew told John that his niece and nephew, the children of William B. Morse and Ann F. Morse of Minnesota, were at the Emery’s house (Fall River Evening News, Friday August 5, 1892: c 2). Andrew wanted John to pay them a visit (Inquest 101). Morse had, however, already been told earlier by those at their grandmother’s house (Inquest 103). She probably lived with William Mason’s family, Lydia’s father, in Warren, Rhode Island. 

The Emerys resided on the second floor in a two-family home at 4 Weybosset Street, later renumbered to 24 Weybosset Street. Daniel Emery was not at home when John made his visit to the family. Mrs. Horace G. Kingsley, who lived at the first floor apartment, says that “she saw Mr. Morse come to the house early in the forenoon, and that she heard the trouble he had at the door and saw him as he was going away. She was getting her dinner at the time and it was after 11 o’clock, though she did not notice the exact hour” (Fall River Evening News, August 5, 1892: c 2). John Morse said that he recalled that Annie “was indisposed while I was there, she was on the lounge part of the time” (Inquest 103). Lydia “said that one of her family was sick, and that Dr. Bowen was her physician.” It appeared that the two-family home was equipped with a telephone to make a call for Dr. Bowen to come to the house. “Dr. Bowen came in just as Mr. Morse left” (Fall River Daily Herald, August 5, 1892: 4).

Police interviewed Annie and Lydia to verify Morse’s visit that morning. Lydia explained to police that Mr. Morse arrived at the house before 10 o’clock and left at 11:20 AM.  Morse’s departure time was also confirmed by Morse’s niece  (Porter 20). Officer Medley questioned the Emerys as to Mr. Morse’s visit that morning. At the time, Medley found Daniel and his wife in the back yard playing croquet (Fall River Daily Globe, Friday, August 5, 1892). Morse’s nephew was not questioned, as he had been out that morning. Daniel Emery was more than likely at work at the Hargraves Mills, within a very short walking distance from Weybosset Street.

John Morse’s alibi that morning was confirmed by police officials and relatives (a niece and a cousin), yet it was his return trip from Weybosset Street to Second Street that was considered suspicious and his behavior odd. Morse stepped off the trolley car that he had hailed on Pleasant Street and walked a short distance up to Second Street. He arrived at the Borden house just before noon (Porter 10). Edwin Porter, reporter for the Fall River Daily Globe, wrote at the time of the murders, “The street in front of the house soon became blocked with a surging mass of humanity, and the excitement grew more and more intense as the meager details of the assassination were learned” (Porter 4). 

Morse passed by a rather large crowd of eager citizens—who had more than likely heard the news of the murders—passed by Charles Sawyer, a local man directed to guard the Borden’s side entrance by Officer George Allen, and said, according to Sawyer’s testimony, ”For God’s sake what has happened here?” Sawyer then told Morse about the murders (Inquest 138-139). According to Morse’s trial testimony, he first went to around the rear part of the house and picked up “two or three pears,” eating part of one of them (Trial 139). Morse said that he entered the Borden house by the back (side) door (Fall River Daily Herald, August 5, 1892: 4). Mr. Sawyer, however, did not see Morse eating any pears (Inquest 138-139). It seems odd that John Morse did not go directly into the house, but chose to get pears. Perhaps it was his way to cope with what he was about to witness.

Daniel, born in Maine in 1861, was a farmer at age nineteen, and lived in Warren, Bristol, Rhode Island, with his parents, sister Celia, and brother Willie. John Morse visited the newly married Emerys when they lived on North Main Street in Fall River in 1885 (Inquest 103-4)— later staying with his uncle Charles Morse for a year and a half. Daniel and Lydia resided in Fall River from 1885, remaining there until 1894. They moved to Taunton, Massachusetts in 1896, residing there until 1898, where Daniel worked as a supervisor at Whittenton Manufacturing. Daniel and Lydia moved to Tiverton, Rhode Island, a town that borders Fall River on the south, in 1899. While in Fall River, Daniel had been a machinist, a carder at the Narragansett Mills, and, at the time of the Borden murders, was an overseer at the Hargraves Mills, and a grocer and photographer while in Tiverton.

By 1910, Daniel and Lydia relocated to Oakland, in Alameda County, California, where he worked as an elevator construction foreman. The Emery’s son Charles, his wife, Edith, and their two children, also resided in California. Charles was a telegraph operator for a newspaper. Both Daniel and his son Charles were residents in Pinellas County, St. Petersburg, Florida by 1920. Daniel worked as a manager of apartments. By 1930, he had married again. His second wife was Francis S. Emery. 

Daniel L. Emery died in Florida, on April 11, 1950, at the age of 89. Annie, Uncle Morse’s niece, later became a teacher, and his nephew, William M. Morse, worked as a day laborer in Minnesota. John Vinnicum Morse died in Hastings, Iowa in March of 1912. Annie, the niece that proved to be John Morse’s alibi on August 4, 1892, and her brother William, were named, among other relatives, as legatees in his will.