After a hot Saturday yesterday I am sitting here in my living room where I can feel a refreshing breeze on my cheek from an open window overlooking Maplecorft. This was one of the safest neighborhoods in Fall River in Lizzie's time and pretty much still is today.
Looking over to the east side of Maplecorft one can see 3 cellar windows; all with iron bars on them.
I'm sure that it was a prudent move on Lizzie's part to install these. After the trial she was famous if not infamous. I would have installed them if it were me.
But how much of this was judicious caution and how much of it was fear. Did Lizzie sleep with one eye open? Did she hear noises in the dark? Did she get up in the middle of the night every time she heard a suspicious noise?
Though speculation may be entertaining, we well probably never know.
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You live that close to Maplecroft? How lucky you are! There was a topic up some time ago about those bars, I thought that she had had them put in also. But I tink the final answer was that there was no way of knowing if she did or if they were there when she moved there. Personally, I think she did, and I think they both were afraid, her and Emma. Either way I would have been, had my parents been killed in the house where I was living by an unknown person, and for an unknown reason, I'd always wonder if they'd be coming after me too. And had I done the deed, I'd always fear someone coming after me to get even. But either way, bars would have been installed. Emma after she moved out was said to have a weapon near her at night (an axe) now weather to protect herself from an unknown, or to protect herself from Lizzie is speculative. But evidently there was fear there for both of them.
I had heard of these bars but never saw them.
I don't know if it was a combination of Andrew's penurious ways, and that she just got in the habit of locking the house up tight, but I don't think she did it, and did this to feel safer? However, I do think she was somewhat involved and knew who did it, so maybe it was a message to them, and possibly a reminder to herself?
Pammie
I have always wandered if she lived in fear. Does any one know if anyone ever broke in to maplecroft? I have always wandered if people made "cat calls" towards her, or wispered to each while she walked by them or something. Just how well accepted was she after the murders?
Suicide is painless It brings on many changes and I will take my leave when I please.
Yes, that's a funny story about Emma sleeping always with an ax near by for protection. If one is not an expert at their weapon of choice there is a good chance that their own weapon will be used to do them in. But who knows, perhaps Emma was an expert with an ax.
It would be interesting to find out if Lizzie had those bars installed. Maybe someday someone will find some old accounts receivable ledgers or the such in some old attic. Showing payment received by Lisbeth Borden for installation of. . . I can dream can't I.
Thanks for the picture. I've never seen them before.
I get an impression that the axe was quite the common weapon around those times. Nowadays I'd think maybe keep a baseball bat handy or something.
Thanks for sharing the picture. Maplecroft is a very interesting subject for me. Not only because it was the home Lizzie lived in after the murders, but because it contrasts so starkly with her living arrangements before the murders. Here we get to see Lizzie's personal taste shine through. I have a feeling that home, even though Emma lived there for a time, was pure Lizzie. If she had those bars installed she may have just been continuing on with the stringent attention to security/privacy she had lived with under Andrew and Abby. Old habits die hard? Being under public scrutiny may have definitely served to step up the watch. Really makes one wonder what the Borden's were hiding with all those locks.
"He who cannot put his thoughts on ice should not enter into the head of dispute." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Arthur Phillips, one of Lizzie's defense team, supposedly later wrote: If Miss Borden’s mind showed any lack of balance in later years, it should not be weighed as evidence of her former condition, because she ever afterwards lived alone, she had no close friends, she was always ogled in public and very annoyed by public activities and encroachments upon her private life. Would any woman be normal when subjected to such a life?--The Borden Murder Mystery
"In Defence of Lizzie Borden", Arthur S. Phillips
You know, I was just thinking- Len showed us examples of 2 other *Allen houses* around town- maybe you could check to see if they have cellars and bars on the windows?
Sounds good Kat. Will ask Len where the other Allen homes are and check it out.
Yes Allen.............I would say that Maplecorft is pure Lizzie. Not that Emma did not have any say in the everyday decisions made at Maplecroft; I think she just did not care and left it up to Lizzie who took full sovereignty. A good example of this was Emma giving up her "Bigger and Better" bedroom to Lizzie at 92. Did Emma love Lizzie that much or did she eventually give up the spoils to a more dominant sibling?
Yes Shakiboo........sort of nice living next door to the big house. Of course there are things I wish I didn't have to see. The day is very overcast. As I sit here and write I need only turn my head to the left and there is Maplecorft. But every time I do so, it saddens me to see the back porch in such despair and can only wonder where the stain-glass window on the second floor facing the east side has gone to, or why it would be removed at all?
Yes Shakiboo........sort of nice living next door to the big house. Of course there are things I wish I didn't have to see. The day is very overcast. As I sit here and write I need only turn my head to the left and there is Maplecorft. But every time I do so, it saddens me to see the back porch in such despair and can only wonder where the stain-glass window on the second floor facing the east side has gone to, or why it would be removed at all?
Oh that sounds so sad, Lizzie would have a cow! I guess to every upside there is a down. Hope the sun comes out and brightens things up!
