A Glimpse into the mind of an Irish Domestic Servant in America

[camgarsky4]

This 160 page booklet is chock full of fascinating insights into the Irish woman, both in the 'old country' and in America as immigrants. I bought and study this book for a number of reasons, but gaining insight into Bridget's natural thought patterns and likely background is a primary reason. If you are interested, I highly recommend the booklet.

Below is an excerpt that gives an insight into employer/domestic servant relations in 1800's America. Of particular note, it would seem there were a number of 'nicknames' using actual names used. Colleen, Bridget, Nora and, of course, Maggie (albeit not mentioned in this piece).

Irish domestics of the victorian age were in high demand in America, they had no difficulty gaining employment. If authors like Edward Radin had done a bit more background study, they would have picked up on this well documented fact and realized that Bridget could have readily quit the Borden's and be reemployed in a snap. But of course, doing thorough research doesn't necessarily lend itself to sensationalism.

Enjoy....

Title - Erin's Daughters in America - Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century
Author - Hasia R. Diner
Publisher - The John Hopkins University Press, 1983
Excerpt from page 85
“Employers kept hiring “green” Irish girls to cook and clean and sew as well as care for the children and the household despite the pervasive judgments offered – almost universally—against the colleens who, it was said, could not cook, whose standards of cleanliness fell below that considered appropriate for middle-class Americans, and who might in fact be disguised agents of the Pope bent on converting the Protestant children in their charge. Despite these prejudices against Irish servants, despite the constant litany against Irish habits and lack of skills, employers seemed to have lived in constant dread of the moment when Bridget or Norah might decide to quit. Knowing this, Irish servant girls seem to have moved from job to job with ease, recognizing that their services were needed and that they therefore operated out of a position of strength. They could, in fact, set some of the terms of their employment and in essence could “shop around” for an ideal situation. So secure were these servants in the knowledge that they could always find work that one Boston domestic from Ireland responded forthrightly to Frances Kellor’s query as to why she did not want to receive training in cooking and other household craft, “Shure, now, why should I be l’arnin’ when I kin shove my ear in anywhere and get a good job?”

[Inspector]

This is interesting, and news to me.
I think of the McHenry interview, and if true what Bridget might have known concerning how she could get another job quickly.
I wonder how Andrew may have felt about a pay raise for Bridget, or if Abby offered it from her own allowance.

[camgarsky4]

Nellie's letter definitely comes to mind and matches up pretty well with these insights.

The booklet discusses in-depth how desired these positions were for young irish girls, The pay was decent and it provided free room and board in a pleasant setting. Much better than their peers working at the textile mills, working 12-14 hour days of non-stop work and living in relative squalor. With minimal expenses, the domestics could help their families back in Ireland and earn respect within their family clan. It also resulted in Irish immigrant women marrying later than some would view as normal. Bridget being unmarried at 25/26 was not unusual at all for an Irish woman immigrant.

[Lorcan]

Both Bridget and the Kelly's domestic felt comfortable taking a break talking out in the open in the middle of their work shifts, so that backs up the perception that they felt relatively secure in their positions. I wonder if it also would help to support the nobody is lying option for the window washing. If John heard the initial instruction and then later Abby reiterated it, since Bridget had not yet started on that chore, perhaps Bridget thought with her being sick earlier and it being hard work out in the sun, that maybe Abby would let the window washing slide until Bridget clearly felt better.

Not too long before the Netflix series starts. I wonder if we'll get a few new researchers later in the month.

[Inspector]

Interesting take Lorcan. Good hypothesis too. Of course this means Bridget had a discussion with Abby after getting sick, which pushes Abby’s death out a bit.
Bridget said that Lizzie put her slop pail down on the kitchen floor when she came into the kitchen, but didn’t see her take it anywhere else.

Other testimony Bridget said Lizzie usually took it out to empty it. If it wasn’t there when Bridget came back from vomiting, where did it go, or was it left there on purpose?
Suppose we’ll never know.

[Lorcan]

That slop pail detail is more interesting than the window washing. One of the main ways the blood could possibly not stick to the handleless hatchet is if the slop pail was full of water and lye soap and I think there was one other cleaning agent women used to soak their cloth to get the blood out - if the slop pail was used to hide the hatchet (they are large enough) and there was a good mixture of cleaning agents in there and the hatchet went in wet, no blood trail and possibly no blood remaining on the hatchet. I have this vision in my head of holding the wet hatchet over the flames and boiling and cooking off any blood. If the hatchet had been soaking for hours, and it was held in the flames for 20 seconds, I think that would foil the blood tests at the time. The proteins would be carbonized like cooking a steak and I think that would be enough to foil their primitive blood tests back then. Especially if it was later scrubbed in more soap and water.

The fresh break on the handleless hatchet and it being deliberately covered in ashes rather than dust like the rest of the contents of the container it was found in seems to scream either red herring or Andrew's murder weapon. I mentioned this before but the asymmetrical grinding that allowed the handleless hatchet to fit a through and through wound on Andrew's skull where a new 3.5 inch hatchet failed to fit would either be strong evidence the handleless hatchet killed Andrew or the person who ground and sharpened all the Bordens' hatchets used the same technique, which is also highly probable, so although the handleless hatchet fit it would be that and hatchet of sufficient age that had been ground and sharpened repeatedly by the Swedish farm hand would have a similar blade profile where the bottom edge of the blade was worn down more than the rest of the blade.

[camgarsky4]

Inspector -- I've tended to interpret Bridget's testimony to mean that Lizzie went thru the kitchen on her way to take her slop pail to the cellar. She then came back up and sat at the kitchen table. I know Lizzie fabricated much of her testimony, but this view does match exactly with what Lizzie said happened in this instance. The usage of the words "came through" is indicative of Lizzie going somewhere beyond the kitchen. "she left down" would be a really odd way to say "she went down to the cellar" in today's world, but perhaps it was a normal description back then. Lizzie's description "down cellar" is also a bit off compared to our experience.

Bridget - Preliminary Hearing
Q. What did she do?
A. She came through the kitchen, and she left down the slop pail, and I asked her what did she want for breakfast. She said she didn't know as she wanted any breakfast, but she guessed she would have something, she would have some coffee and cookies.

Lizzie Inquest
Q. Where did you go then?
A. Into the kitchen.
Q. Where then?
A. Down cellar.

Lorcan -- When do you think she became aware of the need to something beyond simply washing the hatchet to cover her tracks? That special cleaning materials would be necessary.
Are you envisioning that she broke the handle using a technique similar to Rebecca Pittman's experiment?
Lastly, what do you make of Mullaly's testimony that the handle was there when they found the head of the hatchet? He must have been confident in his statements since he had to have known he was contradicting a superior.

[Lorcan]

I'll try to answer them all with my best guesses.

1.
Q. What did she do?
A. She came through the kitchen, and she left down the slop pail, and I asked her what did she want for breakfast.

I think Bridget, in our vernacular, said: She entered the kitchen and set her slop pail down and I asked her what she wanted for breakfast. I think Lizzie sat down at the kitchen table for a little while having some coffee and cookies before going downstairs, otherwise why set the slop pail on the floor?

I get the same type of answer from AI: "Left down": A common 19th-century phrasing (and typical in Hiberno-English, the dialect of English spoken in Ireland) that simply means "put down" or "set down."

2. I think Lizzie and any 32 year old woman would have been so familiar with the amounts and proportions of blood removing ingredients to remove stains from cloth. The ingredients used in 1892 were: bicarbonate soda, lye soap, saltpeter, vinegar. So, I don't think it was Lizzie with CSI knowledge about bloodstains, I think it was an 1892 woman with two decades of experience of putting bloody cloth into a soaking bucket full of cleaners.

3. The chip of wood brought back from the garage is super interesting because Lizzie said she found lead, but didn't bring it back, but she mentioned a chip of wood. That is exactly how Pittman got that matching break.

Q. Did you bring any sinker back from the barn?
A. Nothing but a piece of a chip I picked up on the floor.

Why the heck did Lizzie not bring back lead, but bring back a chip of wood? That is super interesting. Lizzie had all sorts of firewood in the cellar and a pile of wood in the back yard. Her dad is a carpenter who whittles.

Q. Did you ever see that thing? (Wooden club.)
A. Yes, sir; I think I have.
Q. What is it?
A. My father used to keep something similar to this, that looked very much like it under his bed. He whittled it out himself at the farm one time.

So, usually the handles split along the grain, like a broken baseball bat, but if you put a chip of wood under the handle and then swing a heavy object, you get the break just like the handleless hatchet, according to Pittman. She has photos of her testing and results. I can't independently verify it, but it makes sense. The only other way I can think of is to put it in a vise and break it while it is being held in place. The vise would prevent the lengthwise splitting as well, I would think.

I do not believe they found the handle of the handleless hatchet. I think the officer who said they did is wrong. Those officers should have been taking notes and been much, much, much more organized and systematic during their searches. There are so many nooks and crannies a handle could have fit around that property that the head of the hatchet might not have fit, so given the state of the fire, I don't think it was burned in the kitchen stove. I think the fire wasn't hot enough for a handle of that density to burn to ash in that amount of time - assuming that was one of the murder weapons. If Abby was the only target to begin with and Lizzie planned to get Bridget out of the house and establish an alibi (stage a break in after Bridget left) then she might have tossed a new hatchet on top of Crowe's barn or otherwise gotten rid of the weapon used to murder Abby. Or it might have been the handleless hatchet for both, or none - but if none - why the fresh break and why the rough ashes rubbed on.

The one thing we know is that hatchet head was not left in place to slowly accumulate the fine dust the rest of the old tools had on them. I can think of no innocent explanation for the clean new break and the rubbed heavy ashes on a wet blade. If anyone can explain that with an innocent explanation, I'd like to hear who in the Borden household did that and why.

[Lorcan]

I took us a bit off topic, but at least we are still discussing Bridget's testimony. I think it was Pittman or maybe Shelley D. who had mentioned a series of Lizzie's statements that although suspect, appear to be grounded in a kernel of truth - the chip was one of them. If I remember the rest I'll put it in investigative improv.

To be more clear the reason I brought up the chip (I assume of wood) is because not only does it match the one apparently known way to get the handleless hatchet break, there is this:

After he and Marshal Hilliard went up into the barn loft, Harrington wrote:
I then said to him “if any girl can show you or me, or anybody else what could interest her up here for twenty minutes, I would like to have her do it.” The Marshal shook his head, and said something about it being incredible; his words I cannot give.

The surrounding passage:
When we finished the first floor of the barn, we ascended to the loft, the Marshal going just ahead of me. There I found officers Conners, Doherty and J. Riley. The Marshal said, “I want you men to go give this place complete going over; every nook and corner must be looked into, and this hay turned over.” I then said to him “if any girl can show you or me, or anybody else what could interest her up here for twenty minutes, I would like to have her do it.”

So, what I am getting at is Lizzie had access to all kinds of wood, a carpenter for a father...why would she bring back a chip of wood from the floor of the barn? She was interested in lead for a sinker, but did not bring back lead. She was interested in tin or iron to fix her screen, but failed to ask her father, the carpenter to help her fix her screen, or Bridget who was washing the windows to help her remove the screen to work on it. It just seems like a little gem of a suspicious statement that is interesting to ponder.

[camgarsky4]

We will have to 'agree to disagree' on what Lizzie did with her slop pail. I think she and Bridget are telling us that Lizzie took the 1 or 2 steps to the cellar stairs and properly disposed of it in the cellar commode.

On the chip...
Q. Did you bring any sinker back from the barn?
A. Nothing but a piece of a chip I picked up on the floor.

Google.Gemini
By 1890, the word chip was widely understood to mean a small fragment, piece, or token.

Lizzie was responding to a specific question about a sinker, so it would seem far more likely her response was indicating she picked up a 'chip' of lead or metal. I think a liar would not want to claim a reason to go into the barn and then say she didn't end up getting what she went for.
I personally don't think she was even in the barn, so anything she said she did was an untruth.

[Lorcan]

Excellent - back to Bridget to stay on topic. Camgarsky, do you interpret Bridget as saying these things happened in the order she mentioned them?

Q. What did she do?
A. She came through the kitchen, and she left down the slop pail, and I asked her what did she want for breakfast.

1. She came through the kitchen.

I think this most likely means she came through the door into the kitchen. If she literally meant she walked through the kitchen into the cellar, then how do we explain:

2. and she left down (set down) the slop pail

If she was walking from upstairs through the sitting room (or dining room) she would have about 4 or 5 steps into the kitchen to the cellar door. Would she set down her pail on either path? I don't think she would, those two doors (kitchen-sitting room, kitchen-dining room) are more of a hallway because of the stove placement on the West wall of the kitchen - it's more of a hallway created there.

So, if we think she went directly downstairs where and why did she set the slop pail on the floor immediately before Bridget asked her:

3. I asked her what did she want for breakfast.

Perhaps Lizzie walked past Bridget and Bridget waited for her to return up to the kitchen before asking that question, but it seems more physically natural that Lizzie walked into the kitchen, set the slop pail down as she sat at the kitchen table and surveilled the situation from a good perch. Similar to the ironing perch when Andrew returned home.

We can agree to disagree, though. I'm only pushing the point because we might jiggle a clue lose or see something in a different light by actively thinking through the different possibilities of what Bridget is describing. It's hard to know the amount of time between events the way she worded that sentence.

[camgarsky4]

I would imagine the daily routine for the Borden's, and everyone else of that era, was to dump and wash out their slop pail as the first 'to-do' once a person left their bedroom every morning.

If we suppose she deviated that morning and sat down at the kitchen table and placed the pail and its foul contents somewhere near herself, what clue or indicator does this give us? What is her purpose of delaying cleaning out the pail for a minute or two? Either way, she is sitting at the kitchen table at roughly the same time whether she went to the cellar toilet or not...so she is in her 'perch' if that is what she was looking to accomplish.

If we are leaning into Bridget's recollection accuracy at this time, we should factor that Bridget bolted outside to vomit as close to simultaneously as you can get to when Lizzie sat down. Can't imagine she was focused on the details of Lizzie or anyone's movements in those moments.

[Inspector]

Bridget testified she didn’t see Lizzie empty her slop pail, but that Lizzie usually did.
Without knowing Lizzie’s typical routine, it’s hard to say if there’s any suspicious activity with Lizzie’s pail before Abby’s murder because the trail ends with Bridget and her comment.

If Lizzie brought up clothes from the cellar, that would provide concealment, but I feel the weapon was already upstairs before Lizzie came down.

I initially entertained the idea that Abby could possibly be dead when Lizzie first came downstairs, so naturally following the slop pail would make sense in support of that scenario.

With all the contradictions in time between Bridget and Lizzie during these critical minutes, I figured why not see if Lizzie killed Abby earlier than was historically assumed.

It’s theoretically possible, and there’s a time gap albeit small.
I won’t go into all the reasons I think it could work, nor do I support the scenario, but perhaps someone may want to explore it for themselves as I did.

The chip— I never considered the chip to be a chip of wood, but figured it was a small piece of tin.
It is interesting that a chip could be used to break the handle, but doubt that Lizzie would offer that information,
She seemed to always distance herself from pertinent items of guilt.

[camgarsky4]

Ah, that is what you were stewing on. Good idea to poke and prod on. What makes that problematic is the murder would likely have occurred when Andrew was home and probably John. Bridget would have to have not talked to Abby after her vomiting event.

I can't imagine Andrew would leave without expressing some version of "good bye" to Abby, but maybe he didn't

I don't think that possibility is a hard no....more of an unlikely.

[Inspector]

Unlikely I agree. Saying goodbye to Andrew could present a problem, but without knowing the elder Borden’s morning routine, it’s uncertain, but given Andrew was a locker, you have a good point. It’s more secure to inform others of the household upon departure.
Also, I’m not sure that Lizzie killing Abby before coming downstairs for breakfast would make anything more clear, although that is my primary goal in these outside the box thoughts.

I’m thinking JVM had already left , and perhaps Lizzie could observe or knew Andrew’s every step, and when was the best time to strike,

Surprisingly this scenario works well with Abby making two guest room appearances, and all the assorted testimonial frustrations, except for Bridget and her post sickness conversation with Abby.

In my opinion, the only thing that seems to throw a little suspicion towards Bridget besides her proximity, is her testimony surrounding the time of Abby’s murder, and it’s not much, in fact Bridget could be telling us exactly how it happened.