Ooops! Fall River Herald News Makes a Big Mistake

I am not the first to blog about the mistake by the Fall River Herald News in this morning’s paper. That credit goes to Shelley Dziedzic (hear that Herald News, that’s S-H-E-L-L-E-Y) on her site Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts. However, I may just be the only one with the image and the solution as to just who this person is.

The Fall River Herald News had this as their front page this morning:

Notice anything funky? Yes, that photo on the left that says under it “Andrew Borden.” That isn’t Andrew Borden. How could they be so wrong? Don’t they proof the images they print? I see they took him off their online version of the story and replaced it with an image of Lizzie. How nice. Now what to do about the thousands of print copies that are all over town?

Apparently this is big news. Newspapers from as far away as Florida are calling Borden historian Len Rebello to ask him what he thinks of this “newly discovered image.” Of course, he told them it wasn’t Andrew. Anyone can see it isn’t Andrew.

So who is this guy and how did he make it into print?

The mystery as to who the man is has been solved by Michael Brimbau, who accurately remembered where he had seen that face before. Check out page 521 of Philip Silvia’s Victorian Vistas: Fall River, 1901-1911. There he is plain as day.

Who is that man? None other than the author Silvia’s grandfather, Frank M. Silvia, from a Fall River Daily Herald article from September 3, 1907.

Now ain’t that a kicker the day before the day before the murders in Fall River? Poor Andrew. Killed in life and now killed in the press.