Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Does anyone know the style or type of couch Andrew was found on? Is that pillows behind his head or blood stains? I'm researching the scene in order to sculpt a miniature of it.

Thanks!

That would be his Prince Albert coat AND blood stains. Try the crime library from this website, as there is a GAZILLION bits of information/pictures there.

Main
http://www.lizzieandrewborden.com/LizzieABorden.htm

Crime Library http://www.lizzieandrewborden.com/LizzieABorden.htm


Welcome to the forum !


Tracy...

Snooch @ Mon Sep 12, 2005 1:41 pm wrote:Does anyone know the style or type of couch Andrew was found on? Is that pillows behind his head or blood stains? I'm researching the scene in order to sculpt a miniature of it.

Thanks!

All I know about it is that it is 7' 1" long and had horse hair as stuffing, from what I have been told. I used to be a furniture maker and have always wanted to make a full size replica of that sofa and the furniture in the guest bedroom. Those pieces look pretty cool. I always liked ornate furniture. I often wonder what ever happened to them.

Welcome to the forum, Snooch.

-1bigsteve (o:

Hi Snooch, welcome to the forum.

In Porter's Fall River Tragedy, then Fall River Globe newspaper reporter Porter, said he was told by Dr. Bowen in an interview he had with him:

"... The sofa on which Mr. Borden reclined was mahogany with hair cloth covering, such as was commonly manufactured for high class parlor furniture 40 years ago. ..."

This same information appeared in the August 6th Evening Standard and was repeated in many of the books on the case.

The following is from Spiering's book, Lizzie, p33.

"Finally, Bridget got up and ambled inside the house, latching the screen door after her. She filled her pail with water from the faucet in the sink room and set up her ladder in front of the two windows in the sitting room. She glanced at Andrew's couch opposite the windows. It was brown leather, mahogany-framed and upholstered with horsehair, with tufted, well-padded arms, and several decorative pillows piled at each end. It looked so inviting. Yet if she stopped again she would never finish with the windows."

All other sources say the sofa was black but since they all seem to have originated from Porter, and Porter's book doesn't seem to mention color, I have no idea from where the black color originated.

Anybody want to research it?

Thanks! I've found some similar dollhouse couchs on ebay that might work. Not exactly like it, but as close as it gets. Since his head is smashed up it saves me the trouble of getting a likeness or even features. This is going to be some macabe fun!

Snooch, in case you didn't notice I went back and added some additional information to my post.

Apparently we were typing at the same time.

Mahagony is a redish open-pore soft hardwood that takes stain real well and is sometimes stained a dark brown to look like black walnut. Old varnish darkens with age and the varnish on that old sofa Andrew was killed on may have simply darkened with age giving a "black" look or a "blackish red."

Does anyone know what happened to all the furniture in the sitting room and guest room?

-1bigsteve (o:

I did a search to see if I could find what colors that horsehair upholstery came in during the 1850s. Most of what I could find seemed to be left in the natural color of the horsehair; blond, browns, black. I suppose it could be dyed also, so, nothing concrete there as to the color of the sofa upholstery yet.

Hi!
If you have the trial, Kieran is the one with the measurements of the sofa, pg. 114:
7' 1" long
2' 3" wide
Seating area 4' 11" long (the rest is arms)
Seat is 18" high from the floor
From the floor to the top of the arm is 28"

I've spent time in dollhouse furniture stores looking at Borden-like furniture, too!

(I have a plastic model kit of The Bates Mansion, but I haven't gotten around to making it, yet.)

I'm a little confused by the horsehair upholstery sofa stuff.

My next-door neighbor had a horsehair sofa when I was growing up. We hated to sit on it as kids, especially in shorts. The horsehair had nothing to do with the fabric that was visible (this one was green velvet). It was the stuffing inside the sofa. You would sit on the sofa, and these stiff hairs would poke out, sticking you in the legs, like sitting on a thousand pins.

P.S. I live in an old house with plaster walls. They would mix horsehair in the plaster to give it body in the "old days". Until I had a skim coat of new plaster put on top so I could paint the walls, there were places visible where the hair was prominently noticeable. We used to make jokes about the body hidden in the wall because there was so much hair visible. There were spots with brown hair, black hair, etc. Thank Heavens for wallpaper!

I know what you mean, Cynthia. I remember the same thing. Hair, hair, everywhere! We had a sofa stuffed with horse hair and I was always tempted to take my dad's razor and shave it. Horse hair was one of several things used in plaster in the old days. Now days you can open a sac of Structolite, mix in water and trowel it on.

I feel sorry for all those bald horses wandering around out there...

Thank heavens for foam rubber!

-1bigsteve (o:

So here is what I boughthttp://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 5615267890
Not EXACTLY the same couch, but as close as it gets without completely sculpting the couch by hand. We'll see how it goes.

That's cute!
Just pad the sofa arm with a pillow, an afghan and a coat.
(And an antimacassar).

I know you found your couch, but it kept reminding me of a couch I found several years ago online at an auction site. I think this was very close to what the Borden's sofa looked like except theirs was black.
I had it saved on a disc. I was looking for a fake foto I once made of Tina-Kate *in the hall.*

Make note: It has to have casters!

http://www.laurelauction.com/Fall%20Cat ... le2001.htm

Cool! Very close to the Borden's sofa. Did you see the dresser just below the top of the page? I hope the attachment works.

-1bigsteve (o:

There was absolutely nothing unique about the furniture in the Borden house. I see similar pieces for sale at auction practically every week. That stuff was really hardy! Incidentally, somebody gave the impression that horsehair couldn't be woven into fabric, but that it was only used as stuffing. Horsehair definitely COULD be woven into fabric and often was in those days. It is still made (though in much smaller quantities, I'm sure) and is available on the Internet. It was the Naugahyde of the Victorian era -- wore well and was water-repellent. I've sat on pieces upholstered with it and found it quite slippery. That may explain why Andrew's body slid down from its original posture after he was axed.

Interesting thread. I have ordered my Grandaughters dollhouse kit, as close
as I could get to the home I grew up in (and similar
to Lizzies)it is called the Williamstown model. Of course I will want to get a couch just like Andrews,
thanks for the info here.

When I visited the B and B guests were having their pictures taken on the couch, some were posing in Andrews position. Myself I wasn't comfortable with posing, it wasn't a fear but a matter of respect.

I guess because it was so long ago that most people can distance themselves from it. Although it has been over 100 years, time does not change what happened. Andrew was killed on that spot. I guess because it's been so long, to some people the it's more like sitting in one of the three bears chairs that Goldielocks sat in than something that is real.

I thought of something, since we don't know what happened to the original couch we don't know for sure that the one at the B and B is not it. unless there are some charactaristics that are noticably different.

I often wonder what happened to that Borden sofa and whether it is still out there in someone's living room with blood intermingling with the old springs. I wonder about the guest bed too. In fact all the Borden furniture. Did Lizzie take any of it with her to Maplecroft? Sell it? Give it to charity? Auction it off? Burn it?

It would be cool if someone could track it.

-1bigsteve (o: