What Exactly Is This Area?

[Kat]

I'm reading the Prelim. I guess Harry is also.
I'm at Fleet now and he says:
356
A. I then searched, just looked around her room, without making a general search, searched around in all the rooms that I could get into, that was not locked.
Q. What rooms were those, if you remember?
A. The one I was already in [Lizzie's], I merely glanced around in that room; then in the upper front bed room, or spare room, as they call it, I searched around there; and tried another room which I found locked, a clothes press. Then I went down stairs. I did not go in that room at that time.
Q. Did you go into Emma's room?
A. Not at that time; I just merely looked, what I could see from Lizzie's room, that is all. All I did was to look in there from Lizzie's room; I did not make any search.
Q. Was the door open between the two rooms?
A. Yes Sir, I looked in, but did not go in. I went down stairs, and looked in a closet at the foot of the stairs, the foot of the front stairs, down stairs. I looked in the dining room, sitting room, kitchen, pantry, and sink room down stairs. I went up stairs, and looked in the rooms that were opened, Bridget's room---
Q. In the third story?
A. Yes, and another room on the second story, and is in the stair way.

Here is the portion of floor plan that includes the area Fleet is speaking about.
What use had it?
If there was a sink there, why did Andrew get water from the kitchen to take up and why did he clean his teeth in the kitchen sink?
This corresponds to the first floor sink room and pantry and they both show doors into the adjacent room- kitchen proper on the ground floor and Andrew's bedroom on the 2nd floor.
We don't hear much about these 2nd floor rooms. What was their use and can anyone find more references?

[Susan]

Good question and good find, Kat. I found one slight reference to it in the Trial Volume 1, page 401:

Q. What did they do then,----where did they search?
A. First I remember being in Mr. and Mrs. Borden's room and showing the two smaller rooms out of them, and their coming into Miss Lizzie's room. I do not remember being there, but if(sic) course I was there and went down stairs with them, and I went into the parlor with them, and that is all I know about that search.

And I found a direct reference to what would have been the pantry because of the shelving in the elder Borden's room.

Trial volume 2, page 1143:

Q. Now if you have finished in the attic, we will go next where you went?
A. Yes, sir. We went down stairs and went into what is termed Mr. and Mrs. Borden's room. We searched that room thoroughly; went through the bureaus, drawers, went into the closet, went through the shelves, looked all around everything that was there, and we looked into a place where there was a cupboard by the chimney, where we was trying to get a stick down in by the chimney in order to poke around there. We went from that room into Miss Lizzie's room; Mr. Desmond and myself searched that room. Mr. Jennings was there and Dr. Dolan sat there.

I found something interesting doing the search, apparently there was a sofa in Mrs. Borden's dressing room! From Trial volume 1, page 733:

Q. And the room where the sofa was-----Did you look in that?
A. Yes, sir.

Q. Were there any dresses in that room?
A. It seems to me there was, both ladies and gents clothes hanging up in that room covered with a sheet.

[Kat]

Thanks so far, Susan!
Can you tell who is speaking?

I wondered if the elder Bordens used the room (equivalent to the pantry) as a wash room - or a potty room. Maybe they wanted privacy in that way?
And maybe their wash stand was in the first room off the hall- only because it says "sink" on the floorplan.

[Susan]

Sorry, Kat, yes I can tell who was speaking, was just excited over the possibility of a new find with the sofa in Abby's dressing room; you just never know what you'll come up with when searching the source documents!

Anyhoo, on page 401 of the Trial, Alice Russell is on the stand.

The one who spoke of the sofa on page 733 is Dennis Desmond on the stand.

And on page 1143, Rufus B. Hilliard is on the stand.

[Shelley]

A pottychair room is a pretty good guess. Even with a chamber pot, a commode of some sort was common. These either were fold-up compact cubes which had a slip in shelf for a pot, or a chair which had a hole in the seat and a slip in shelf underneath. These would have been needed for anyone, but particularly for older people.

[Shelley]

These are widely available in antique stores in the 80-150 dollar range. There were so many made (naturally) that they are not expensive.


Since the house was built in 1845 as a two-family, it is not surprising that the configuration on the first and second floors is exactly the same in 1892. Originally, in 1845, the city water had not been available to run a sink and spigots to the second floor. When the Bordens moved into the house in 1872, maybe Andrew saw no need to add it to the second floor.
We don't know when, between 1845-1872 that plumbing went in to the privy in the cellar, or piping to the kitchen sink room , barn and cellar washroom. Might be possible to trace old city waterline records.

[Shelley]

This is the cube type chamber pot toilet or commode. This one has a dual purpose in that it can be used as a stepstool into a high bed. Beds were so high because heating was so primitive- the higher the bed, the warmer. Looking at the Borden Renaissance Revival style beds, they seem pretty low to the floor. But then Andrew had installed radiators so they were plenty cozy in bed at night!

[joe]

I don't recall seeing that little room on the 2nd floor. Is it above the kitchen and adjacent to the bedroom?

[Shelley]

There are two little rooms off the inside of the Borden bedroom on the second floor. The one on the right is now a pink bathroom. The one on the left has a bed in it. In 1892 these were here and were Abby's dressing room which had a safe, desk and settee in it, the other one (which is now the pink bathroom) might have been Mr. Borden's dressing room or clothes storage. It had shelves in it as it was once a pantry when the house was 2 family. Abby may have stored some linens on those shelves. When Bridget had to go upstaits to fetch a sheet to cover Andrew, she did go up to the Borden bedroom to do so. In the sketch above, a small hall room (the entrance today is walled up) is shown above what was the sinkroom on the first floor. Today that room is part of the bathroom where the black clawfoot tub is located.

Downstairs the old sinkroom entry in the back hall has also been walled up and the sinkroom has become part of the bathroom off the kitchen where a shower and tub now repose. These are pretty much the only major structural interior changes.

[Shelley]

This is a view of that second floor back hall, taken through the Borden's bedroom door. This corridor was uncarpeted in 1892 and went up (on the back left) to Bridget's room. The front left went down to the kitchen. The little hall room would have opened up on the right side of this back hall just about where the black picture frame shows on the wall now.

[Shelley]

This is the view standing in second floor hall looking down the steps to the kitchen. This opening is just outside the Borden bedroom-maybe one step away.

[Kat]

Thanks Susan for the added info!
I noticed today in the Prelim that Fleet says he searched "that room"- meaning Andrew's bedroom, and then goes on to say: "We searched that room, and the room adjoining, there was a safe in that, but we did not find anything; nothing but the bed, that is all; we found no kind of an instrument that the persons could have been killed by." ...etc

Since we know pretty much that the bedroom itself had the gamut of bedroom furniture, it sounds like he is describing a "bed" in Abbie's dressing room- which may be his British way of saying the lounge, or "sofa" that you found, Susan.
It's got me thinking maybe the elder Bordens didn't always sleep together?

[Kat]

The LBQ had an article on when the Bordens got city water and showed the order and the bill:

"The Proof is in the Pudding." Lizzie Borden Quarterly IV.3 (July 1997): 19.
Reprints of the Fall River Water Department Records of 1874-1878, meter reading reports on the Borden house, and Borden and Almy's application for water, showing that, perhaps, Andrew was not quite the extreme miser he has been made out to be.

From:
http://lizzieandrewborden.com/Resources ... BQAuth.htm

I think Andrew ordered water lines to his home within about 6 months of the water being available in his part of town.

[Kat]

Thanks for all the pictures, Shell!

[Susan]

You're welcome, Kat. And thank you to Shelley for all the pics. Wasn't there an old cistern or well in the cellar of the Borden house that Emma and Lizzie had mentioned was covered over? Perhaps the sink room on the second floor was always a sink room, just with one of those hand pumps to draw the water up from the cellar well? Perhaps Andrew had it removed when he had the house hooked up to city water. Remember someone had found that reference to a stove being in the Borden attic that we figured came from the old kitchen on the second floor?

[Kat]

I was the one who found the stove and it has bugged me ever after! Even while staying in the House recently- I had Harry looking the attic over for a possibility of a working stove! We also checked for where the fireplace in the cellar might have risen thru to the roof. I think we figured that one out.
I've been told that a hand pump would not be enough to raise water to the second story- it would take electricity. Good questions tho.
Maybe there was a *dry sink* in that second floor area like Missy had opined about the first floor kitchen area (which really was a sink).
We were just talking about the cistern in the cellar, Har and myself! He remembered it and brought it up when I was talking about the drowned children. We were discussing wells and cisterns and barrels that catch water in the days before City water.
You're reading my mind, Susan!