Lizzie Borden Society Forum

A link to hatchets and the temperance movement.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2745

This is where I enter into the unsub never to be identified category - someone who suffered financial or even personal tragedy at Andrew's money-grubbing hands. Given Abby's death - the rage involved - I would think eye for an eye. Did someone's wife die or leave him due to a business arrangement with Andrew that soured? Evidence to support this or any similar theory is non-existent to my knowledge, but stranger things have happened. The.re's no predicting how anyone will respond when truly backed into a corner from which their is no escape and no retreat

What a find, Curryong! Remember the Crowe barn hatchet was said to be gilded like it had been used for a "decoration". Hmmmm......

I knew about Carrie Nation and her axe but I thought it was an axe, not a hatchet.

Now somebody needs to find out if any saloons were smashed up in FR. Maybe a saloon keeper was ticked off (cordial term there) enough to commit murder. Of course we're still stuck with why wouldn't Lizzie have been a victim too?

Speaking of liquor I always had the idea Bridget may have had a drop on her night off. I have wondered if she was hung over that morning though it seems to be clear from several sources that Bridget had migraine and her symptoms were those of migraine...or hangover.

Yes, I somehow can't see Bridget as an abstainer either, though I might be doing her a disservice in saying that. I can picture her having a couple of beers on her day off on a hot summer's day, though I suppose a woman going into a bar in those days wasn't terribly respectable.

It's funny, isn't it that the temperance movement, so strong in the US right up until the prohibition era, is nowadays regarded as a bit comical and unusual? Yet whole families, as we've seen with the Bordens/Morses, were huge advocates for never allowing a drop of spiritous liquors touching their lips. (It wasn't so big in Australia but the oldest surviving hotel in Melbourne, the Windsor, was once a temperance hotel, a 'coffee palace', as they were known.)

There's a functional water fountain donated by the WCTU that still sits on the main corner in the town where I grew up and still live...conveniently situated between the two bars, perhaps as an alternative to the thirsty???

Carrie Nation and her hatchet battalions were the precursors to Prohibition and the organized crime wave that followed. Where would Al Capone and his cohort be without the WCTU?

My great grandmother married my great grandfather at age 16 and had four children by age 20. She then had another eight. One daughter died and left behind six children. Then a daughter-in-law died and she too left behind six children. Great grandmother reared them, too, all together 24 children! Until the day she died (she was close to 100) she swore that 1) Great Grandpa had never seen her knees????? 2) that not one drop of alcohol ever crossed her lips...never mind that she drank Geritol by the gallon for the final 20+ years of her life. She was born fifteen years after Lizzie.

Oops. Double post. Second time this has happened.

They bred them hardy and determined, in those days, debbie. Rearing 24 children is quite an accomplishment.

In London the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association (still in existence) built literally thousands of drinking fountains for thirsty humans and troughs for equally thirsty horses and cattle, all around the capital in the 19th century. In appealing for donations advertisements stated that 'if it had not been for the operations of the Association, thousands of people, young and old, who now quench their thirst at the fountains would probably be driven to the public house.' The MDFCTA certainly built their fountains as near public houses as they could.

Yes, unfortunately banning something popular immediately sends it underground, and Prohibition certainly allowed organised crime bosses to gain great wealth and connections. I suppose bars across the Canadian border became very popular with the residents of towns in northern Montana, Wyoming, etc during the Prohibition years.

There was a lot of public drunkenness in Fall River in the 1880's and '90's, in spite of the Temperance movement then being at its height. (By 1890, under its influence, there were only sixty five bars in the city, beside Eating Houses and hotels which served liquor. In 1883 there had been 186 saloons and liquor outlets.)

In 1883 Dr Henry Cogswell of San Francisco, a well-known philanthropist and temperance advocate, gave Fall River one of the huge and ornate drinking fountains he was in the habit of donating. Carved into the stone of this fountain were words which concluded 'Citizens and strangers drink freely of this cooling stream. It will promote temperance, faith, hope and charity.'

The water in these fountains was cooled by an underground invention designed by Dr Cogswell and the donated fountain was duly erected outside City Hall in Fall River. However, soon there were complaints that the water issuing forth was 'tepid and unfit to drink, causing much discomfort in hot weather.'

The short lived Young Women's Christian Temperance Union was organised in Fall River in 1891. It was an offshoot of the Women's Christian Temperance Union which had formed in the city in 1883, but was not listed after 1892 in city directories. Both organisations had offices in the AJ Borden building, the young women in Room 4. In 1892 Lizzie was Treasurer of the Young Women's organisation, but of course it all came to a crashing halt some time after her trial.

Fall river, until recently, always had a countless number of bars. Especially in the 50s' and 60s' when I was a little boy. (I'm still a little boy in my head, though)

I grew up in the East End, away from 2nd street and worlds away from Lizzie's Maplecroft, a place better known as the Flint.

Spent my childhood around places called The East end Cafe, The Webster Cafe, The Ringside, The Green Lantern, The Strand Cafe, The Madeira Club, the Notre Dame Club, all practically at our doorstep. And not too far down the road, around where the Emery's lived, and where Morse was said to have spent his time during the murders, there were more bars, with names such as the Quequechan Club, The Blue Bird, The Massasoit, and more who's names I can't remember right now. Most of these were on Pleasant Street, the "Main Street" of the East End.

Three blocks east and west of my front door there were 8 bars or clubs with bars. A mile from our front door there were over 20 bars. Though some were called Clubs, they were anything but.

Drunk caverns. Despicable and dirty places which subjugated and defined a neighborhood in many respects. People in fall river always described the part of town they lived in by the name of the local church and parish or by the neighborhood bar.

I wrote an article for the Hatchet about growing up in the city and the influence these bars had on the town and young minds.(Apprentice to a Shoe Shine Boy)

We use to go into these "Clubs" as children—10 years of age— to shine shoes. Characters in these places were right out of the old West, but without the guns. If you spend enough time in one of these places you would get cancer from the smoke filled air, loose your hearing to the loud talk, or die young of cirrhosis of the liver.

Unless you came from the right family, one with money, or who's parents were educated or had good jobs, fall river was not a good place to grow up. And the many bars and taverns were proof of such a claim. (Though some have fond memories growing up here, many were tragic)

Though Lizzie's work with the Temperance movement may have placed a tiny dent on the impaired and inebriated of her day, it did nothing for those who lived in the real world, immigrants and those less fortunate, which was the greater part of the city.

Curryong wrote:Hiram Harrington, married to Andrew's sister Lurana, couldn't stand Andrew (and apparently wasn't overly fond of Lizzie either.) he told the Fall River Daily Globe August 1892

'Mr Borden was an exceedingly hard man concerning money matters, determined and stubborn, and when once he got an idea nothing could change him. He was too hard for me. When his father died some years ago he offered my wife the old homestead on Ferry St for a certain sum of money. My wife preferred to take the money, and after the agreements were all signed, to show how close he was he wanted my wife to pay an additional $3.00 for water tax upon the homestead.'

. Rebello Page 25.

If Andrew was prepared to do that to relatives I don't think there was much chance of him shedding the milk of human kindness on any of his tenants!

I don't put very much faith in the correctness of anything Hiram Harrington stated to the Fall River Daily Globe. I especially don’t put any stock in his ‘interview’ with Lizzie. Here is just the section of the full article where Hiram is supposedly interviewing Lizzie:

'Last evening I had a long interview with Lizzie Borden, who has refused to see anyone else. I questioned her very carefully as to her story of the crime. She was very composed, showed no signs of any emotion or were there any traces of grief upon her countenance. That did not surprise me, as she is not naturally emotional. I asked her what she knew of her father's death, and, after telling of the unimportant events of the early morning, she said her father came home about 10:30. She was in the kitchen at the time, she said, but went into the sitting room when her father arrived. She was very solicitous concerning him, and assisted him to remove his coat and put on his dressing-gown; asked concernedly how he felt, as he had been weak from a cholera morbus attack the day before. She told me she helped him to get a comfortable reclining position on the lounge, and asked him if he did not wish the blinds closed to keep out the sun, so he could have a nice nap. She pressed him to allow her to place an afghan over him, but he said he did not need it. Then she asked him tenderly several times if he was perfectly comfortable, if there was anything she could do for him, and upon receiving assurance to the negative she withdrew. All these things showed a solicitude and a thoughtfulness that I never had heard was a part of her nature or custom before. She described these little acts of courtesy minutely.

'I then questioned her very carefully as to the time she left the house, and she told me positively that it was about 10:45. She said she saw her father on the lounge as she passed out. On leaving the house she says she went directly to the barn to obtain some lead. She informed me that it was her intention to go to Marion on a vacation, and she wanted the lead in the barn loft to make some sinkers. She was a very enthusiastic angler. I went over the ground several times, and she repeated the same story. She told me it was hard to place the exact time she was in the barn, as she was cutting the lead into sizeable sinkers, but thought she was absent some 20 minutes. Then she thought again, and said it might have been 30 minutes. Then she entered the house and went to the sitting room, as she says, she was anxious concerning her father's health. "I discovered him dead," she said, "and cried for Bridget, who was upstairs in her room."

'Did you go and look for your stepmother?' I asked. 'Who found her?' But she did not reply. I pressed her for some idea of the motive and the author of the act, and after she had thought a moment, she said, calmly: "A year ago last spring our house was broken into while father and mother were at Swansey, and a large amount of money stolen, together with diamonds. You never heard of it because father did not want it mentioned, so as to give the detectives a chance to recover the property. That may have some connection with the murder. Then I have seen strange men around the house. A few months ago I was coming through the back yard, and, as I approached the side door, I saw a man there examining the door and premises. I did not mention it to anyone. The other day I saw the same man hanging about the house, evidently watching us. I became frightened and told my parents about it. I also wrote to my sister at Fairhaven about it." Miss Borden then gave it as her opinion that the strange man had a direct connection with the murder, but she could not see why the house was not robbed, and did not know of anyone who would desire revenge upon her father.'

Here is what is in the Witness Statements (p. 11):

Hiram Harrington. “When the perpetrator of this foul deed is found, it will be one of the household. I had a long talk with Lizzie yesterday, Thursday, the day of the murder, and I am not at all satisfied with statement or demeanor. She was too solicitous about his comfort, and showed a side of character I never knew or even suspected her to possess. She helped him off with one coat and on with another, and assisted him in an easy incline on the sofa, and desired to place a afghan over him, and also to adjust the shutters so the light would not disturb his slumber. This is something she could not do, even if she felt; and no one who knows her, could be made believe it. She is very strong willed, and will fight for what she considers her rights. She went to the barn, where she stayed twenty minutes, or half an hour, looking for some lead from which to make sinkers for fishing lines, as she was going to Marion next week.” He spoke about the Ferry street estate being given to the girls, and afterwards being returned. He spoke at some length about her telling about the same story as was published in the News and Globe of Friday evening.

Harrington and Doherty

Hmmm, so Hiram went from being a tender loving uncle, to an uncle who insinuated Lizzie was the perpetrator! I find that very, very, odd.

Another reason I don't put a lot of stock in Hiram's ‘interview’ with Lizzie is because of the following:

On Jul 23, 2006, Harry posted:

Radin, page 82:

"The feud between Harrington and the Borden family, with the exception of Emma who still visited the Harringtons, was no secret in Fall River. All the papers, except the Globe, mentioned this fact so that their readers could judge for themselves the value of Harrington's statements.

One reporter, who had seen the blacksmith go in, timed the length of Harrington's stay. With tongue in cheek, he wrote that Harrington had managed to get a surprising amount of information from Lizzie considering that he had been inside the house exactly three minutes."

http://tinyurl.com/mugnlmx

On November 02, 2006, Kat posted:

In Proceedings, some of Jennings' notes have been transcribed. This is on Hiram:

k. Harrington, Hiram--Brother-in-law of A.J. Borden arrives at 12:05 and at 12:15 (?) hired a horse to go notify his wife because she had been sick and he wanted to tell her himself because of the shame he feared.

http://tinyurl.com/kekdszl

On March 27, 2009, Harry posted:

Uncle Hiram allegedly had a long interview with Lizzie the day of the murder. Kent, in his book, casts doubts that he did and had this to say:

"... On the day after the murders, Hiram spoke freely with reporters, and he patently enjoyed the limelight. He aired his version of what had happened at Andrew's house and left little doubt that he thought Lizzie was the villain.
Implying an intimacy with Lizzie that he certainly never had, Harrington told how he had had a long "interview" with her, another fabrication. A reporter who had been present when Harrington came to the Borden house said he had been inside exactly three minutes. "Mr. Harrington is embittered against the family," he told his editor, 'and does not hesitate to make startling statements."

http://tinyurl.com/pcjumqw

This is a tremendous amount of information that Lizzie supposedly told her uncle in a three minute period of time. Hiram’s claim that he had a long ‘interview’ with Lizzie – I don’t buy it. I do believe Hiram was at 92 Second Street on the day of the murders, but I do not believe he had a long ‘interview’ with Lizzie. Why in the world would Lizzie even give an uncle she supposedly didn’t like all of this information, or the time of day for that matter?

Lizzie’s Inquest Testimony was held a few days later, and she points her finger at her Uncle Hiram Harrington as the ONLY one who had a bad relationship with her father.

Inquest
50(7)
Lizzie
Q. Beside that do you know of anybody that your father had bad feelings toward, or who had bad feelings toward your father?
A. I know of one man that has not been friendly with him; they have not been friendly for years.
Q. Who?
A. Mr. Hiram C. Harrington.
Q. What relation is he to him?
A. He is my father's brother-in-law.
Q. Your mother's brother?
A. My father's only sister married Mr. Harrington.
Q. Anybody else that was on bad terms with your father, or that your father was on bad terms with?
A. Not that I know of.

Was Lizzie pointing her finger at her Uncle Hiram Harrington for retaliation of implying she was the one who killed her father and Mrs. Borden, or was she simply stating the one person she knew of who did not along with her father???

I also found the following information posted by Harry on August 15, 2006:

Radin has this to say on page 189 (paperback):
"The story of family dissension told by Hiram C. Harrington, Borden's blacksmith brother-in-law, needs little explanation because it is just that---a wild and woolly story. One of the Fall River Globe reporters, who was local correspondent for the New York World, telegraphed Harrington's story to the New York paper but added an important qualifying sentence: "Mr. Harrington is embittered against the family and does not hesitate to make startling statements." Even Knowlton doesn't seem to have been very impressed with Harrington's story. After he questioned Harrington at the secret inquest, he never called him as a witness at the trial."

http://tinyurl.com/kcebrsm

The point I am trying to make is this: It is a well know fact that Hiram and Andrew did not get along, so Hiram’s statement in the Fall River Daily Globe regarding Andrew being an exceedingly hard man concerning money matters, just doesn’t hold much merit with me.

mbhenty wrote:
(I'm still a little boy in my head, though)

Oh Mb, therein lies the the most heartening and disheartening of human conditions...I've often thought death comes when we no longer feel young rather than when we stop breathing.

Yes, Debb:

I have acquired some knowledge about never growing up. And It is not necessarily a good thing.

But for those who have not had a very happy childhood—and there are many rationales behind why, including a dysfunctional family, (take Michael Jackson) thus we can't always blame the place where we grew up.

But again, for those who have not had a happy childhood, many spend a lifetime trying to make up for it. Consequently he or she retains that child-like way of thinking.This could reflect in eating to much, always spending money, etc.

I remember when I was a little boy, we had very little money. At christmas time I could not wait to open my one gift so I could go next door to my friend's house, Tommy Hall. He got some of the most amazing gifts, like electric trains. He had many uncles and aunts and the tree was stacked with presents. I would help him open some, tear at the paper, and pull the new toy out of the box. I was trilled, even though they were not mine. Slinkys, match box cars, a wagon, pedal scooter, hulahoops, Kenner building sets, Erector sets, etc.

As for me as a young adult it became: Corvettes, boats, clothes, books....... and I'm still at it today. (Boy, it helps to be single)

Yes twins, Hiram made up the 'heart rending' interview he gave to the newspapers inferring that he had been to see his niece Lizzie shortly after the murder. There was certainly no love lost between Andrew and Hiram, nor was Hiram overly fond of Lizzie and vice versa. Nevertheless, that $3 water tax due has the ring of truth in it to me. Andrew wouldn't have regarded his asking for that to be paid as an act of meanness on his part, simply that it was due and why shouldn't he ask for it to be paid!

I suppose that a lot of the bars that you knew as a boy would have sprung up during the war (thirsty factory workers) and the 1950's, mb? I expect that, being a textile town, Fall River had a bit of a boom during the war and the prosperity was retained for a while.
Of course you are a little boy in your head. I am still 21 in mine and will be till the day I die.

I agree that the Temperance movement had only a tiny impact on the lives of many working men and women. I wonder whether Fall River had any speak-easies in the Depression and whether local criminals got into the liquor distribution?

When one strikes bone with a sharp instrument, be it a knife, ax, cleaver or hatchet, it can quickly dull the blade. Butchers, meat processors and the like keep their knives sharp with constant sharpening. They use 'steels' to keep the blade smooth and sharp.

Hacking through a skull would have dulled the murder weapon, causing more strength to be needed. This results in soreness and injury. Even if the person only does it for a few minutes and a limited amount of blows.

From what I see at my work, I think it would be hard work, for a strong man to have killed the Bordens in the manner in which they died-- and although I wholeheartedly believe Lizzie could have done it-- I don't think it was necessarily an easy task physically.

Even adrenaline kicking it-- once it's over, a person is usually spent.

Could there have been 2 hatchets or axes?

I process quite a bit of meat scraps for my cats & dogs with a hatchet that I seldom sharpen. It doesn't take much to hack up meat. However the sharpness of the hatchet in the Borden case is always very interesting. I would suppose too that under extreme emotional distress muscles would tend to be tight and one might feel soreness the next day. In the aftermath of brutal murder I am not sure the killer would notice the soreness though.

I lived in a small town out west that had an elaborate drinking fountain installed by WCTU. The reason for the fountain was as stated, that there was no water available to drink and that urged at least men to the saloons. Drinking fountains and bathrooms were not available in those days. Split drawers were undergarments women could wear. If there was an overwhelming urge to urinate while in town they could step into an alley, spread their legs a bit and relieve themselves. In the town I previously mention, a number of years ago there was a question put to the public about how to improve downtown. Many said a public restroom because at that time all the businesses had made their facilities off limits, I think to thwart shoplifting. Those in charge were thoroughly disgusted that all anyone wanted was a bathroom open to the public, but eventually it was done.

The temperance movement had a really bad effect on the US and with the recent federalizing of medical care we are heading back into Prohibition. The government has determined that one alcoholic drink per day is the only "safe" amount anyone may consume, though men may be allowed two. How this gets enforced is if someone admits or accidentally mentions drinking more than that. It ends up in the patient's chart and the patient may subsequently be treated very bad. I have written on this subject as I ran afoul of the system by telling a doctor I had used for years, that I had had "a couple hot toddies" for a cold. That was a fatal statement for me and I had to drop that doctor. Because I communicate with lots of people across the US I understand not all medical systems are this messed up~~yet. But Oregon pioneered a lot of this stuff and the craziness is why I moved back to Idaho. It is the goal of the federalized system that all medical care will be like this. It is to the patient's advantage to lie about a number of things.

There could have been two axes or hatchets, Mystery, but that would have meant more hiding places. No-one found any viable hatchet.

Are modern hatchets made of the same materials as they would have been in Lizzie's day? Made so they retain a sharper edge, I mean?

Any soreness felt would have been well disguised by Lizzie, who would, in a way, have been expected by those around her to have stayed in a state of collapse. Alice seemed to do some cooking, Emma washed the dishes, when Mrs Marianna Holmes came she would have performed some tasks. Bridget was around for a few hours. Lizzie wasn't a person who seemed to do much housework anyway, and for at least a couple of days after the murders she could have done even less.

Of course she had to dress herself up for the funeral on the Saturday which would have involved a bit of stretching but she seemed to manage. Perhaps she had a nice relaxing bath with bath salts before she dressed. That would have relaxed the muscles.

Yes, public restrooms were in short supply in smaller towns in England too, in Lizzie's day. Of course in larger places there were public urinals for men, and large stores and railway termini etc had facilities for women. These had a female in charge who kept towels for washing hands afterwards. Mirrors were on the walls (as they are now) so customers could really neaten themselves up. All this was available for a penny charge. For decades having to 'spend a penny' became a euphemism for wanting to use the loo! I can remember these facilities as a small child.

What you say surprises me, irina. We have a national medical scheme that works very well and none of our State governments or the Federal one would insist on its citizens confining themselves to one drink a day. The British National Health Service would certainly like it, I think but it would never be enforced in any way. Is it a suggestion or an edict by the Oregon government?

Our doctors started going away to government sponsored seminars and came back with strange ideas. Patients were abused. Oregon started the Oregon Health Plan about 20 years ago which was a medical system for poor people in the state, with federal dispensation. Oregon pioneered a lot of stuff that is on the wishlist called the ACA which is federal. I have written about a lot of it and researched a lot and commented online. Some of what I say, other people, including doctors say is malpractice. I have seen Oregon doctors deny care to admitted smokers for instance. Years ago I was a licensed nurse and this is absolutely mind numbing that they could do this. At this time there is a huge industry in "smoking cessation" so smokers are worth money for the programmes.

One of the best articles I have written, I think was on the Readiness Ruler which is a social engineering device to limit people to one or two drinks per day. My article I think is hopelessly tangled in the archives where I write. Readiness Ruler can be googled though and the idea will come through loud and clear.

My personal problems have to do with incessant and destructive pain. I can have headaches so bad that I end up screaming day and night for days. A certain narcotic taken as needed relieves this agony but it is very hard to get. I got a write up for "addictive personality" because I A WOMAN, OMG, had said I had had 2 "hot toddies". The latter were likely mulled wine with honey & spices wherein I brought the wine to a boil. Or I might have made a hot rum drink. Don't remember. Anyway the alcohol content would have been low. Plus I had once said I drank a beer when I was tired & got a little extra energy. It is apparently not allowed to drink alcohol for a reason like that. (I don't drink any alcohol now because I take a heart drug.)

So, as for enforcement it is in little ways like pain treatment. If you do anything wrong & get written up or if you have ever admitted smoking, they have ways to get you but it's all real subtle. Before I moved to Idaho I almost had preemptive gall bladder surgery in Idaho on my own time because I was afraid of having an attack in Oregon and being denied pain medication after surgery. In the end I just moved back to the state of my birth. People are still sane here.

In my research I read a lot of things about the British health system and things they are doing. It doesn't seem to be crazy like it can be here. I noted some criticism of doctors rationing certain procedures but it made some reasonable sense, like knee replacement in 600 pound patients isn't a good idea. Doctors here wouldn't want to do that either. It was a bit of a bigger deal with the national system and got the rationing tag.

Back to Lizzie, I really wouldn't imagine her or anyone being sore after a couple murders. (I don't get sore muscles using a splitting maul with one and a half arms and it's not something I do everyday.) Maybe the first couple whacks took a lot of effort but I don't think whoever did it worked that hard afterward. Then there was that rumour that Lizzie was bulking up at a gym across town somewhere. Maybe she could bench press a couple hundred pounds? On the other hand if say, Lizzie, had to stretch extra high or far to reach the target, that could have pulled some muscles. However it was I think she probably had enough medication in her to overcome any residual soreness.

I am so sorry to hear of your health problems, irina. To have chronic pain in any part of the body must be dreadful but in the head especially horrendous.

I am quite partial to a couple of 'hot toddies' myself in the winter time. Around Christmas the weather here isn't really suitable but we do a non-alcoholic punch for those who have to drive home (luckily most of us live near each other) and a champagne punch for those who don't care! As we have a sherry trifle, brandy in the Xmas pud and several bottles of wine between us to accompany Christmas dinner, I should say that most of us are nicely tanked by the afternoon!

Pain is now criminalized.