Sherry Chapmanby Sherry Chapman
First published in April/May, 2004, Volume 1, Issue 2, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.
Bridget’s question put to Lizzie Borden on August 4, 1892 —“Where was you?” —could also have been asked of Dr. Seabury Bowen after Lizzie’s trial the following year. It would have been an excellent Who-Wants-To-Be-A-Millionaire-Like-Lizzie question (had a show existed) at the million dollar level! Unfortunately, nobody seems to have a clew as to the details of Bowen’s life after 1893. Until his death in 1918, he seems to have disappeared from the face of Fall River. Dr. Bowen, where was you?
I began to research Dr. Bowen several years ago, asking this question of practically everyone I know who was into the Borden case. I always got the same answers: “I don’t know;” “There just isn’t anything on him;” “Good luck on that one!” Some believe that Dr. Bowen simply retired and led a life of luxury. “For twenty-five years?” I asked myself.
One of the reasons for my trip to Fall River last spring was to do a biographical dig on the good doctor. Michael Martins was very kind, but was another of the simple well-wishers—“Sorry, can’t help you there.”
If you have ever done research at the Fall River Historical Society, you are familiar with the smallish but comfortable research room with the long, steel table you sometimes must share with volunteers of the museum. The volunteers I met were cheerful and we had some compelling conversations while I was there. It was obvious they loved what they were doing. I envied them. I said, “You know, if I lived here, I’d live here,” meaning in the archives, spending the rest of my life among the dozens of filing cabinets, reading every page in every file.
One of the volunteers working that day was a delightful woman who turned out to be a close surviving relative of Vida Turner, the soloist who sang to Lizzie’s corpse, her requested “My Ain Countrie,” in the stillness of a June day in 1927 inside Maplecroft. She sang in another room, out of sight of Lizzie’s casket. When she was done, she didn’t know what had happened to the man who had shown her in. He had told her he would pay her after the song was over. It was so quiet it unnerved her. She saw no sign of a living soul. Mrs. Turner loved to sing, so she decided to sing another song to take the edge off of her nerves. She saw the gentleman almost upon her as she was in the middle of singing, “It Had to be You.” Though he gave her a queer look, she was paid nonetheless and was relieved to see the light of day outside of the mansion once again.
Nearly everyone, it seems, had some tie to Lizzie. There was one quiet man sitting across from me who was busily typing from an old, handwritten record book. After a while I asked, “How about you? Do you have a Lizzie story, too?” I laughed, realizing that just because this was Fall River didn’t mean everyone had one. But he did. “Yes, in fact, I do,” he said, looking up from his work. “My mothah used to work in a nursing home heah, and she took care of Lizzie’s nurse.” I didn’t recognize the name of the nurse. “I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “You know they say Lizzie liked orange sherbet?” I nodded. “Well, she may have liked it, but it didn’t like her, if you know what I mean.” I looked at him quizzically. “Went right through her. She’d holler for it, and they’d give in and give it to her. I mean, you don’t turn down Lizzie Borden, do you? But 20 minutes later she needed a change.” Okay. It was now time to tell my husband to go back home and just leave me here, for what, six months?
I asked my new friend about what he was transcribing. Even from upside down, I could see the flowing script of hand-dipped ink that had, over 100 years before, scrolled across the pages.
“This? Oh, this is just a record book of some histories of some old Fall River people.” He turned the book over on its paper stomach and said, “They’ve got me doing A thru D. Anybody you want something on that’s A thru D?”
“Uh, Bowen. I’m most interested in anything I can find on Dr. Seabury Bowen.” I knew he didn’t have Dr. Bowen in that book, but I had to ask or the unasked question would forever haunt me.
He handed me the blue leather-bound volume. “This him?”
I couldn’t answer right away. I had a mouthful of Coke and I was afraid it was going to spew all over the table because yes, the page held open to me was indeed a personal record of the elusive Doctor Bowen.
I swallowed and squeaked out a ‘yes.’ “Would you like me to make a copy of this for you?” he offered. I nodded my head in the affirmative, and probably the rest of my body quivered some too.
There it was in front of me. God-given, I’m sure. Even though the Xeroxes were mine to take, the rest of the talking in the room didn’t filter through to me, if there was any, as I began to read. Oh, God. I was salivating. I’d better not get anything on these. I am famous for spilling food — on my research, on myself. I’ll get almost to the end of a meal and think, “Well, there. I didn’t spill a thing this time,” when a blotch of ketchup will slide off my hot dog or a couple of peas roll down my blouse. There must be a name for me. My husband says, “Spaz.” That could be it. “Oh, yeah,” I chastised myself, “I get to keep these. These were actually mine. It won’t matter if they get dirty.” My heart was beating at a good clip in my chest. I was a little afraid the workers in the room would ask me to keep it down.
I began to read. Dr. Bowen was born in North Attleboro. Wait a second. I had Len Rebello with me (the book, not the person). Mr. Rebello had picked up biographical information that said the doctor was born in Attleboro. Maybe that was the problem researchers were having. Any information on Bowen would be in North Attleboro. I read on, from time to time comparing what I was reading with my much-loved and much-read Rebello. A lot that I was now reading was new. I had the holy grail of Bowen and this is what it said:
Dr. Bowen was born in 1840. His parents were Benjamin and Leafa Clafflin Bowen. His father was a doctor in Attleboro. The couple had a set of twin boys, Owen and Rowen, who died as infants. Though they were blessed with the birth of Seabury a few years later, the grief was more than Leafa could bear. Or perhaps Benjamin was more than she could bear. Whatever the case, Leafa packed up and abandoned the baby and her husband in the middle of the night in September of 1840, leaving a terse note pinned onto Seabury’s sleeping gown that read “Don’t forget to bring the milk can in.”
When Benjamin saw that his wife was gone, he asked his neighbor, Mrs. Caroline Tripp, if she would watch the baby for a few days. He was truthful to her about where he was going. “My wife has left, it seems,” the well-spoken doctor said. “I’ve got to go look for her.” Mrs. Tripp must have been sympathetic, since she did take in little Seabury.
In a week, Benjamin came back. He stopped at Mrs. Tripp’s to collect Seabury, and Mrs. Tripp asked how things went. Without emotion, he said the he did not find her. Mrs. Tripp noticed a pretty young lady sitting in the carriage in her driveway, who Dr. Bowen said was a servant he had just employed to keep house and take care of the baby. “But what if your wife comes home?” she asked. “I don’t believe she will,” was his reply. A few days later, news was published that Leafa Clafflin Bowen was found—but not alive. Mrs. Tripp never spoke to Benjamin again. She had her suspicions, and she also did not like the loud laughter and “things” she claimed to have seen through opened windows of the Bowen house at night.
Seabury grew, and when he was six, Benjamin sent him off to boarding school. He did not see his son again for 20 years, since Seabury had decided to continue his education and become a physician. The pretty young lady remained at the Bowen home, to “keep house for the doctor.” The locals whispered that now that young Seabury was not at home, old Benjamin and his servant girl would be having some extra time on their hands.
When Seabury graduated from Brown University in 1864, his 45-year-old father was not at the ceremony. He had died the previous summer as a result of a gunshot wound to his buttocks when one of his male patients became dissatisfied with the treatment given his wife after the doctor had misdiagnosed her.
Receiving his master’s degree from Brown, Seabury obtained his medical degrees from the University of Michigan and Bellevue Hospital in New York City. He practiced medicine for one year in Worcester (Massachusetts), and taught at the Oread Institute in Worcester. It is said that he had little patience for visitors to the town who would not take the time to learn its correct pronunciation (“Woo-ster”), and that whenever someone said “War-Kester” he would leave the room. His superiors tired of his behavior and helped him obtain a position practicing medicine in Fall River.
In 1871, the same year he arrived in Fall River, he met and married the beautiful Phoebe Vincent Miller. She had long, dark hair and a lovely figure. Her only flaw was one of her brown eyes was crossed, which only seemed to endear her all the more to Seabury. Her parents were Southard and Esther Miller, who lived in a large duplex across the street diagonally from the Bordens. There was no objection to the marriage. When Phoebe brought Seabury home to meet Southard, the couple realized that her parents had the same disdain for people unable to properly pronounce “Worcester.” Mr. Miller, during that first meeting, added that he long ago became tired of people mispronouncing his own name (“Suthard”), and he simply gave up and stopped correcting them, unless they were calling him something rude.
The newlyweds planned to live in the Miller house until they had saved enough money for a home of their own. But when Seabury saw that the household was peaceful, and Phoebe liked it there, they stayed. Dr. Bowen’s reputation flourished when he was able to cure his wife’s crossed eye. Soon others with the same malady approached him, and those that were not blinded by the surgery were a success.
From 1872-1874 he was the city physician of Fall River, as well as a member of the Society of Gentlemen Doctors, founder of the first clinic for victims of crossed eyes, and on the staff at the State Farm in Bridgewater (Mass.), where he spent many an hour working on trying to develop a stemless tomato.
Though not particularly religious, Dr. Bowen was on the membership roll at the First Baptist Church, Fall River. The pastor there was delighted that Phoebe at least was finally attending services with her parents. She had told Mrs. Charles Brooks that now she could finally read the words to the beautiful songs they sang on Sunday. Apparently she had a great love of church hymns.
The town of Fall River plodded along—the mills producing textiles and a lot of noise. Those smart enough to have invested in the mills early on, or those smart enough not to alienate their wealthy kin, raked in the money. And the others? They were just “the others” —mill workers, teachers, and the working class—looked down upon by their wealthy townsfolk, especially if they were immigrants.
And then the unthinkable happened. On August 4, 1892 there was a horrendous double murder in Fall River. Lizzie Borden was soon accused of butchering her parents to death with a hatchet. At the time, Dr. Bowen was working at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Fall River. He knew Lizzie well. Some said too well. He knew the Bordens. They were his patients as well as his and Phoebe’s friends.
Dr. Bowen’s “boy,” or carriage driver, James Oaklin, had just stopped in front of the Miller residence when he was alerted of the murder of Andrew. One only has to read the account in the newspapers of the day, or Dr. Bowen’s testimony, or the words of those who observed Dr. Bowen that day, to know he was in shock and not at all prepared for something like this. He liked Andrew. Even though the old man was a skinflint, Andrew always did pay his physician bills on time, and neither Seabury nor Southard Miller had once caught Andrew mispronouncing anything.
Dr. Bowen became so excited after he saw the destruction of the skull of Andrew Borden, that he called to Mrs. Churchill, who was in the Borden house, “Addie, come look at Mr. Borden.” Mrs. Churchill never looked at Dr. Bowen the same way again. “He simply lost it that day,” she told The Providence Journal in an interview she gave in 1900. (See The Providence Journal, May 11, 1900, page 1.) “He went out to send a telegram to Emma Borden, at Lizzie’s request. Emma was visiting some friends in Fairhaven that day. When he came back, we all told him that Mrs. Borden lay dead upstairs. He said she had probably seen the killer attacking Mr. Borden, ran upstairs and her heart probably gave out on her from fright. Now, we could all see the back of her head bashed in and a pool of maroon blood that had already thickened on the carpet. We looked at him like he was not himself that day — and he wasn’t.”
Dr. Bowen testified at the coroner’s inquest, the grand jury hearing, the preliminary hearing, and the trial.
After the acquittal of Lizzie Borden in June of 1893, Lizzie went directly to the home of Charles Holmes on Pine Street, a well-respected citizen of Fall River whose family had never doubted Lizzie’s innocence. A reception was given in her honor, and Dr. Bowen attended with his wife, Phoebe.
It was shortly after this that the good doctor began acting strangely. He was injecting himself with morphine daily to calm his nerves during the court ordeals. He hated to testify in the Borden case, but he had no choice. The morphine, he felt, was the only way he could get through it.
But he didn’t stop after the trial. In fact, his injections increased both in frequency and amount. The household, of course, knew of it and for the most part tried to keep him indoors, at least until they were sure he would not do anything out of the way on the street. Sometimes he would go for carriage rides, to the bank on business, but the social life he did have before the Borden murders, and his medical career, were over.
In 1894 he was taken to the Taunton Insane Asylum. Records from the period show that he was first admitted on August 2, 1894, which makes one wonder if the impending anniversary of the Borden murders may have prompted something in him.
The first entry of his record of his stay at Taunton reads thusly: “August 3, 1894: Patient was brought in last night in his pajamas. Mr. Bowen kept trying to expose himself, yelling out, ‘Would you like to see, Addie?’ then laughing loudly. He was put in a solitary room for his first week.”
Much of his first year there was devoted to his morphine addiction and withdrawal. He would make great progress, but when he would go home for a day or two he would return inebriated with morphine. One notation may be the explanation. Someone had written on September 16, 1897: “Mrs. Phoebe Bowen believes that her husband is getting morphine from one of his many physician friends when he is at home.”
The asylum, upon learning of this, cancelled all passes home. It would not be long, though, before one or another of his doctor friends would visit him and no doubt supplied Bowen with his needed drug. Though never directly caught with the substance, his sometimes bizarre behavior after such a visit would betray the clandestine activity.
Though not practicing medicine officially, Dr. Bowen did treat an occasional patient in the Taunton Asylum, if nurses could not find a staff doctor. Bowen would be almost a changed man when asked to tend to someone as a physician. He would assume the air of the professional he was before the Borden murders took place, and sometimes would even make out a bill, which the nurse would dispose of once Bowen left the room.
He set broken arms and legs. He took a piece of steel out of someone’s eye. He requested to work on his continuing crossed eye research, but was refused. One must wonder what, if anything, Dr. Bowen would have contributed to the cure had he been allowed to continue his work in that direction. He stitched cuts. He gave medical advice much of the time, asked or not.
Bowen continued to be the unofficial asylum doctor, and things went well for him until late in 1903, when a nurse brought a patient to Dr. Bowen out on the lawn. She asked him if he would recommend stitches for the man’s medium-sized cut on the arm or simple washing and bandaging. “Why neither,” Bowen replied. “The arm must come off!” This was the end of Dr. Bowen’s little medical career at Taunton.
Lizzie Borden never came to see Dr. Bowen during his years in the asylum, though she did try to write him. She would put her name as “Mary B. Smith” so the staff would not realize it was her. But Dr. Bowen would look at it and proclaim loudly, “Why I don’t know a Mary B. Smith! Return this to the post office, please!” and hand the letter back to the orderly. After several attempts at writing and having her letters returned unopened, Lizzie simply gave up.
In 1907, Bowen’s wife Phoebe died. When their only child, Florence, came to tell her father about Phoebe’s death, he became irrational and unable to accept the news. He proclaimed, “She isn’t dead. Oh, no. She is just in shock from what she had seen.” Florence told a friend of it afterwards.
Dr. Bowen’s record at Taunton from 1908 onwards is unremarkable. In 1917, he was released into the custody of his daughter, Florence Bowen Hathaway. Florence gave no interviews and allowed no one except a few close physician friends to visit her father. “He is like a changed person after his old doctor friends come to visit,” she wrote to friend Alice Teaberry. “After they leave, he is on cloud nine!”
Dr. Seabury Warren Bowen died at the home of his daughter on March 3, 1918. This is an inescapable fact. My name is Sherry Chapman, and that is an inescapable fact as well, and you have just been april fooled. Dr. Bowen is buried at Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River, in the Miller family grave site. Dr. Bowen’s obituary can be found in the Fall River Daily Globe, March 4, 1918, on page 6. His obituary in the Fall River Evening Herald is headlined “Was Lizzie Borden’s Physician.” Yes, he was. And that, at least at this point, is all we know.
