Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Does anyone have a sketch or picture of Dr. Chagnon's house?
The testimonies of Lucy Collet (p 229) and Patrick Doherty (p 265) in the prelim, are talking about where the piazza is located.
She says it's in the front, he says it's on the south side.
So now I'm curious to see what it actually looked like and to know if it was possible to see the entire fence behind the Borden property.

I have a kind of drawing of it that I made.

I have to find it.

Watch this space!

Thanks so much Kat--it looks like you get up earlier than me!!

The new Lizzie attraction in Salem has a superb paper 3-d diorama of Third and Second Streets with a great model of the Chagnon house.

Nadzieja @ Sun Jan 18, 2009 8:04 am wrote:Thanks so much Kat--it looks like you get up earlier than me!!

I had not yet gone to bed!

Here is my primitive rendition of the Chagnon house and lot. As you can tell, I missed the class on perspective when I took drawing and painting in Boston in the 1970's!

Rear of Chagnon house. That is their doghouse and the short fence is theirs. The rail you see on the left I think holds up that outside stairway we see in the earlier rendition. It goes up the back. I don't know if just leads to a door, or another overhang/balcony over the back of the house.

Delineation and highlighting by me on a xerox from the newspaper, after viewing the photo that led to the news picture.

Thanks Kat, you did alot better than I would have done. Even though I've been to the house I've never went to the end of the back yard & looked or walked over to see what the back of the house would look like.
Is the Chagnon house still there?

Is the Chagnon house still there? Well, there is a house behind the barn, but it is not the Chagnon house which would have been a little more to the north. There have been a lot of changes on Third Street before and after it was closed off and the senior housing building went in-am not sure of the year that was constructed.

Thanks, Kat, that is a pic related to the Borden case that I have never seen before. Its interesting to see just how close the Chagnon house was to the back of the Borden's property. So, if someone was banging on that fence, they were practically on top of it and could probably hear it quite clearly. I thought I would add this sketch from the LBVM&L site to help with situating where the Chagnon house sat in relation to the Borden house. Oh, and forgot to add thanks for your sketch of that side of the Chagnon house that I've never seen. Is that porch the "piazza" that Lucy Collett sat on waiting for the doctor to come home?

Thanks Susan! I'm glad you thought to put that up- it's helpful.

I'm not sure of the piazza where Lucy was situated.

After I saw the house picture, I thought she might have meant that front porch. It is open on 2 sides at least, that I could see. Open to Third Street and open to the south towards the Crowe yard. There are lots of trees but they are not as thickly forrested as some might think. And they are skinny trunks.

The birds eye view shows the back stairway on the rear of the house as just going up to a door. I guess that answers that. Maybe that was the Dr.'s office?

Also it is very interesting to notice how much room there is between the back of the Borden barn and the Borden fence. That is where the bloody clothes were buried, after all.

In the drawing I made, you see the little fence around the south side of the Chagnon home with the designation *open gate*? That leads to the area behind the Chagnon house that is the second picture I posted- the doghouse picture. Just for your bearings.

This is a 3-D cardboard construction of 3rd and 2nd streets at the Salem Lizzie attraction. It was really helpful to see these- it helps with the sightlines. The Churchill (Buffinton) house was really huge. This is a scale model, with the Borden house being the one painted (of course). You can just see the Bowen-Miller house across the street.

Yes Shelley: that is a wonderful display. The Churchill house was a wonderful large home, a modified Greek Revival Victorian. Shame it is all gone.

Below is a similar home. I'm sure you are very familiar with this building since it sits only a couple of blocks away from 92.

It is very unusual in that it is an early double or duplex design. Known as the Brownell House it was built in the 1850's. You can see that it was very similar to the Buffington/Churchill Home. Of course most of the trim which enhanced the design has been torn off and the building is just a shell of what it once was. Still, it is still here.......more than what we can claim for the Churchill Home.

That's a great model. It really shows how close those houses were & what you could probably see.

I love that the Borden pergola is shown on the scale model. I always wondered why Lizzie did not just say she was out under the pergola reading that Harper's magazine on that warm morning. I would have believed that far more than sitting in front of the stove in the kitchen!

The Chagnons had a barn, and used to have a horse, but no more. (Prelim 465 - Mrs. Chagnon).
I don't see the barn in the model...maybe it has been added later? There is a driveway from the street to the barn, and then a front fence on the Tripp house side of the driveway, then the Tripp house, on Third Street.

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