Lizzie Borden Society Forum

One of Abby's middle names was Durfee. I believe they were one of the families in Fall River. I wonder if she was related to an actress called Minta Durfee, who was Fatty Arbuckle's first wife? She was born in California, but I wonder if there was any family connection with Abby? Anyone know?

I believe she was a 'poor relation' and not from the rich part of the family.
I read something about Richard Henry Dana from an old book. His family came from important people, but his Dad was basically a 'poor relation'.
Can you think of some recent examples from your town? You are not likely to read about them in 'PEOPLE' magazine.

I'm not sure if anyone has traced Abby's side of the family.
Is there any knowledge of Durfees migrating to California?

I picture people in the early days going to California in order to try to find some opportunity denied them elsewhere.

Kat @ Fri May 19, 2006 1:29 am wrote:I'm not sure if anyone has traced Abby's side of the family.
Is there any knowledge of Durfees migrating to California?

I picture people in the early days going to California in order to try to find some opportunity denied them elsewhere.

My limited reading of early 19th cent history is that after 1816, many New Englanders migrated to Ohio and Indiana. The Oregon Trail promised a paradise on earth, compared to the rocky soil of New England.
The Gold Rush was another thing; Colorado also had its mines, and a Confederate invasion to capture them.

Back to California: Hiram Harrington traveled there, and later so did John V. Morse. There supposedly are Morse descendents out there, from a JVM sibling.
Still, I don't know much about Durfees.
If anybody finds them, let us know?

1849-50 or so, damn near everybody went to California. Don't forget Fall River and New Bedford were seaports.

Whaleships from New Bedford were abandoned in San Francisco when they lost their entire crews to the gold rush. The Terry family of Fairhaven did quite well shipping supplies to California during that time and some of them ended up settling there. The grandfather of Paul Terry, the creator of Terrytoons, was the head of the Fairhaven clan.

It would not surprise me in the least if Durfees in CA came originally from MA.

One of these days I have to research and try to find out why Nance O'Neil's family moved out west. I read that she actually came from a fairly prominent New England family originally then somehow they ended up in the bay area. I know she wasn't too happy in the bay area. Today I came across an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, dated May 9, 1911, and it talked about Nance's return to perform in the bay area and it said, "her memories of San Francisco, her hometown, may not be altogether pleasant."

I have done some research on the San Francisco area. I know the trip out west was a rough one. You either had to go by ship and that meant going clear around South American or you had to risk crossing Indian Country. San Francisco was pretty rough in the 1850s. Herbert Asbury, who wrote Gangs Of New York, also wrote about San Francisco in a book called The Barbary Coast.

On page 23 in Rebello's book there is a footnote that says:

"No records could be located to determine if Abby was related to the Durfee family."

Abraham Borden, Andrew's father, and henceforth Lizzie were part of "the lesser Bordens". There were Bordens in Victorian Fall River a whole lot richer than Andrew.

I think the only one to testify at Lizzie's trial was Jerome Borden (besides the Borden girls who went with Lizzie to Europe - if they testified). It seems like he was the uppermost Borden who had anything to do with Lizzie's family.

I bring this up because Jan may be thinking of the Bordens instead of the Durfees in her post.

For what it's worth, here is some on-line information about early marriages between the more prominent Durfees and Bordens in Fall River.

http://ccbit.cs.umass.edu/lizzie/images ... 41F01.html

Because Rebello found no family link between Abby Gray and the Durfees, I wonder if maybe she was given the middle name Durfee to honor a godparent or possibly a friend? It's an odd middle name for a girl, isn't it? -- although no odder than Lizzie's, I guess.

I would like to pick his brain about the research he did to determine if there was a link between the Gray's and the Durfees.

I wish there was as much information available online about that aspect of it. Thanks for the link and the information diana.

Diana - That's true - her 'Durfee' name could have come from a godparent or a family friend. Maybe that's what happened.

I was thinking maybe there was a Durfee way, way back there but your thought makes more sense.

I'm chuckling because methinks it is a lot of trouble to do the genealogy on Durfee/Borden.

Is there any information on how Andrew met and came to marry Abby? Was it too early for photos?

If he was so interested in money I would have thought he would have looked for someone with a bigger dowry/financial status than a tin merchant's daughter (I had assumed she was a Durfee proper before reading this post!). Or was that the best he could do considering quirks/personality?

Who attended the wedding? Any recountings by others on what Emma thought of the courtship back then - when she was a teenager? I wonder what it was that made Emma hate her so? Would it have been too ridiculous/unusual for the two spinster sisters to have moved into a home of their own (before the killings)?

Thanks again Harry for leaving this url on the imdb.

Pardon me, but where does the "tin merchant" come in?
Thanks.

Yes, Emma and Lizzie could have gotten a home of their own together and I think it would have been considered proper in that era. But I don't think they could afford it. Andrew held the purse strings, and that was one way to keep his daughters under his thumb, if that was his desire. That's one theory I've read, and I tend to believe that.

From Rebello, page 27, Alice Russell gives her impression of Andrew in the home: "The father was the head of the house; they had to do as he thought ... Mr. Borden was a plain living man with rigid ideas, and very set ... He earned his money, and he did not care for the things young women in their position naturally would ... It always seemed to me as if he did not see why they [Emma and Lizzie - Rebello's brackets] should care for anything different ... They had quite refined ideas, and they would like to have been cultured girls..." (I thought Kat would enjoy that last part. )

Again from Rebello, page 22: "Very few descriptions of Abby Borden and what she was like were found in newspapers. Mrs. Borden was usually referred to as a stepmother or the second wife of Andrew Borden."

Bill Pavao did a big article on Abby in one of the LBQ's. In the following issue, I did a little article on something I found about her in 'The Knowlton Papers'.

I always thought they met at church, because the only thing I've read about their 'courtship' days is that he walked to church with her.

Andrew and his first wife, Sarah, were married on Christmas Day. That sounds pretty romantic to me.

I wonder if that affected the Bordens' Christmases - made them more sombre.

Andrew and Abby were married on June 6, 1865. Rebello, page 22, notes that the guy who married them was The Rev. Asa Bronson from the First Baptist Church. Asa Bronson was the grandfather of Charles Cook, who was the financial advisor of Andrew - and later, 'the girls'.

There was a very short notice in the paper. From Rebello: "June 6, 1865 by Rev. A. [Asa] Bronson, Andrew J. Borden, Esq. to Miss Abbie D. Gray, daughter of Mr. Oliver Gray of this city." He notes that the paper was dated "June 7, 1865, newspaper had not been identified.) Aha! And here is 'Abby' spelled 'Abbie'. I'd never seen it spelled another way. I think it's a misprint. I saw - and held in my hands - a document that Abby signed, and her signature was spelled "Abby".

He also notes that Esquire back then meant 'gentleman' and not just attorney, like today.

Gee, what did we do before Rebello's book came out

galacticgirl @ Tue May 23, 2006 5:25 pm wrote:Is there any information on how Andrew met and came to marry Abby? Was it too early for photos?

If he was so interested in money I would have thought he would have looked for someone with a bigger dowry/financial status than a tin merchant's daughter (I had assumed she was a Durfee proper before reading this post!). Or was that the best he could do considering quirks/personality?

Who attended the wedding? Any recountings by others on what Emma thought of the courtship back then - when she was a teenager? I wonder what it was that made Emma hate her so? Would it have been too ridiculous/unusual for the two spinster sisters to have moved into a home of their own (before the killings)?

Thanks again Harry for leaving this url on the imdb.

My guess is that Emma was an unreasonable young girl who resented the idea of any woman taking her beloved mother's place. I doubt there was anything Abby could do to change Emma's mind. In my opinion I think that's why Abby may have focused more on forming a relationship with Lizzie. Emma was a hopeless cause.

Kat, I could swear I read that Abby's father was a tin merchant/peddlar in Brown - but I don't have it with me to check (and if truth be told I am known for having a terrible memory so I could be dreaming this! The theory in that book threw me way off my equilibrium for sure - very wild stuff)

Spiering is next on my 'to do' list
From a sneak peak I see nobody checked on Emma's whereabouts!?! Incredible! Can't wait.

DWilly @ Sat May 20, 2006 11:13 pm wrote:One of these days I have to research and try to find out why Nance O'Neil's family moved out west. I read that she actually came from a fairly prominent New England family originally then somehow they ended up in the bay area. I know she wasn't too happy in the bay area. Today I came across an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, dated May 9, 1911, and it talked about Nance's return to perform in the bay area and it said, "her memories of San Francisco, her hometown, may not be altogether pleasant."

I have done some research on the San Francisco area. I know the trip out west was a rough one. You either had to go by ship and that meant going clear around South American or you had to risk crossing Indian Country. San Francisco was pretty rough in the 1850s. Herbert Asbury, who wrote Gangs Of New York, also wrote about San Francisco in a book called The Barbary Coast.

One other valuable thing about Spiering (?) is the play he gives to Nance O'Neil, from Oakland Calif, as I remember it.

Kat @ Wed May 24, 2006 1:47 am wrote:Pardon me, but where does the "tin merchant" come in?
Thanks.

Is a "tin merchant" another name for a peddler of pots and pans?

Thank you Augusta for all the wedding/church/courtship information. Very interesting. I'm sure you're right - December 25th must have been pretty depressing in that household. My b-day is Dec 25th - very depressing as my mom died when I was a baby. Sarah's death must have hung very heavy - esp. with no lavish parties of shower of gifts to take your mind off of things.

When I look at pictures of Abby & think of what half-sister Sarah had to say about her, I don't get the impression she was an evil witch. I know if I was Emma I would think she was - no woman would have been good enough as someone said. Probably the more she tried to be nice to me, the more I would be revolted.

I can't get over how complicated family trees were back then! Half siblings, re-marriages - makes today 'step' conundrums seem like child's play.

I agree with galacticgirl, I think any woman Andrew married would have incurred Emma's enmity. At the same time, I don't think that would have been enough to prevent Abby from marrying Andrew.

Emma's normal early-teen-years -angst, may have also been a factor. In my years of working with that age group...whew...sometimes they just don't like anything. They are struggling just to find out who THEY are, and then in comes someone Emma sees as her mother's replacement ? It is such a dramatic change for them...where as we may pass it off as something to just get used to...and deal with it.


Tracy...

Tracy, thank you for the Rebello tip/lead. Don't go to any trouble to dig up the info but I would love to have it if you were to accidentally come across it.

Your post about Emma makes me wonder - I always hear that the notion of 'the teenager' is a relatively new phenomenon - often associated with the 50's. But all those vo-de-oh-do'ers in the jazz age with their rudy-valee-esque must qualify - and hormones I'm sure have been around forever!

Do you know much about writings on this subject from the time - medical or psychological? Children I know were to be 'seen and not heard' - even I grew up with that notion as recent as the 60's & 70's.

It's a wonder that Andrew tolerated all of this hoopla in his house and didn't just put his foot down, telling the girls to buck up.

In England they would have been shipped off to boarding school - no fuss, no muss. Coming home to an evil witch on school holidays would have been a dream (from the tales my Dad tells of treatment there!)

Speaking of school, what is Andrew's level of education?

This is Abby around the time of her marriage to Andrew.

In Proceedings there are chapters on:
"Pschological and Women's Issues," "Literary [Treatments]," "Historical," "Legal and Forensic," and a Bibliographical section, all devoted to the case.

We should remember that Andrew and his family lived with or very near his father and mother and later his stepmother, amongst others. They either were all in the same house at Ferry Street or across the street. Including Andrew's sister Lurana and her husband Hiram and for a time, their son. The questionable part of when they lived together as opposed to possibly on the same land, is because Harry has a map that shows Andrew and Hiram Harrington households across the street during a certain period. We have not reconciled this as yet.
Otherwise, there was extended family all over the place and a servant or 2 until Andrew moved his family (with Abby now wife) to Second Street in 1872. By then, Emma was 21. There has to have been some influence on Emma living amongst several generations of Bordens as she grew up. It was not a vacuum- just those girls together.

Didn't Emma go off to school for a year and a half fairly soon after Abby and Andrew got married -- when she was 15 or so? This couldn't have provided much time for an initial bonding period between Emma and Abby.

And Lizzie, who was somewhere around 6 or 7 at that time, would have been exclusively mothered by Abby (and Lurana, I suppose) while Emma was away.

If Lurana, Abby, and Bebe Wilmarth did all live together in the one residence on Ferry St., I wonder how happily that worked out for them?

Yes I see what you mean. If Emma went away soon after the re-marriage, then Emma would feel left out of the new *family* created around the new stepmother.

I don't think we can say for sure how old Emma was when she went away to school, or whether it was before or after Andrew married Abby, because the testimony is so vague. Unless there is testimony I have missed.

Inquest testimony Miss Emma L. Borden:

Q. Have you lived at home most of the time?
A. Yes sir.

Q. Have you ever lived away from home?
A. I was at school about a year and a half.

Q. That was some time ago?
A. Yes sir.

This is all the testimony I could find relating to her being away at school.

I took the bit about Emma being 'around 15' from the posted chronology in the crime library on the LAB website. The indication there is that Emma was away at school for a year and a half somewhere between 1865 - 1869.

But what means was used to verify that it was around the age of 15? Or was this a guesstimate for the chronology? Is there more information available somewhere?

Rebello page 7:

No records have been found to document Emma's education. It is believed she was educated in the local public schools. However, it is not known whether Emma graduated from high school. Att. Knowlton, at the inquest, asked Emma, "Have you ever lived away from home?" Emma replied, " I was away at school about a year and a half." ( Inquest testimony:107) This could have been a reference to Emma's education at a female seminary. ( Knowlton Papers, 1892 -1893:410)

I do not have access to the Knowlton papers, is there more information listed about her possible education there? Or is her reference to being away at school about a year and a half the only information we have to go on?

The chronology is based on testimony such as you posted and best, reasonable guesses as to how old Emma would be, and at what stage she was in her schooling, when she went away. Local Fall Riverites who know the case and who know about girls going off to school, and where it was popular to go, have pretty much sanctioned these dates that Diana gives.
That's the best we can do.

I have been looking for a place to post this question and since the Topic is Abby Borden I guess this is as good a place as any.

The night I was at 92 second street there was a bunch of us sitting in the parlor. Someone looked towards the staircase and said "I wonder how they got her down the stairs." We all looked with him towards the stairs. This lead to a discusion about Abby's size and the curving staircase. A few possiblities were mentioned such as;

that If you had enough men you could lift her but it might be difficult manuvering her on the stairs.

They could have dragged her down the stairs but it was unlikely that they would have done that.

They could have placed her on a board but they might have had to secure her to the board. Depending on the boards size it was wondered if they would have had to hold her and the board above the railing on the curved part of the stairs.

With the bit of browseing I have done I haven't found anything mentioned on this.

Good question Fargo. It got me thinking that maybe they went out the 'other' way...through the other rooms and down the back stairs. While that route would have been less steep, there would have been many corners to go around.

Do you think there is a chance that due to the difficulty of getting her out using a board, that it may be possible that they wrapped her up and had someone carry her body over their shoulder as a means of getting her out of the house ?


Tracy...

That was another thing that was mentioned, that mabe they carried her in a blanket. Also that mabe they slid her on a blanket with someone holding her head up while going down the stairs so it wouldn't hit each stair. I took a quick look in Dolan's testimony, I didn't read all of it, he discusses doing the autopsies but I didn't see anything on how Abby got downstairs. Of course Dolan himself might not have helped move Abby.

Gee that's the kind of insightful question that comes up when one is sitting around the Borden house? That's a good one!

Somehow I see them coming down the back stairs too, Tracy.
The blanket or stout sheet idea would work.
They took her out of the house tho, in a coffin. She was stored in the dining room with Andrew until the funeral.

Fargo @ Mon May 29, 2006 6:02 pm wrote:That was another thing that was mentioned, that mabe they carried her in a blanket. Also that mabe they slid her on a blanket with someone holding her head up while going down the stairs so it wouldn't hit each stair. I took a quick look in Dolan's testimony, I didn't read all of it, he discusses doing the autopsies but I didn't see anything on how Abby got downstairs. Of course Dolan himself might not have helped move Abby.

Given no gurneys in those days, either a stretcher or a blanket would do to carry dead weight. Anybody want to experiment?

Thats a good question, Tony, I too have wondered about that. That sounds like it would have been easiest, if Abby had been placed on a sheet or blanket and carried downstairs. It reminded me of incident that happened years ago at my old apartment building. The woman from across the hall had come over having a massive heart attack, we lived on the fourth floor of a four story walk-up, no elevator. The paramedics (two big guys) had strapped her to the gurney, but, due to the narrowness of the hallways and stairs, they had to stand the gurney on end and carry her down that way. And she was a big woman too, I'm still amazed that they were able to maneuver her down that way.

I hate to even mention the subject but ...

Would rigor mortis complicate her removal? According to a web site:

"... It commences after around 3 hours, reaching maximum stiffness after 12 hours, and gradually dissipates until approximately 72 hours after death. ..."

See http://tinyurl.com/mxa2k

We don't know when they brought her down but weren't the photos taken in the afternoon, if I remember somewhere around 3?

If the times are correct and she was killed at 9:30 and removed after 3, that is over 5-1/2 hours and therefore she must have been in some state of rigor.

Even the subject gives me the chills.

It might complicate things a bit Harry. In part tho the difficulty would depend on such factors as narrow hallways, and stairways too perhaps...corners, etc. The photos were taken - Abby's was at about half-past 3, according to the shutterbug Walsh (Trial transcript, p. 121.) Now that you mention it I am curious: How did they get Abby out, and down the stairs? Is that described anywhere "officially"?

Ayup...in order to avoid it, they'd have had to move her out - about noon or so, or slightly before.

I would think a sheet or blanket would have been the most logical thing for them to have used. Wouldn't it be more difficult to find a board large enough for Abby's body, than getting a sheet or blanket out of the closet? Also, it would have been more difficult getting a board around the curved part of the stairs, where a blanket or sheet would be a bit more flexible. It is also possible that she was wrapped up in a blanket or sheet and someone carried her body over their shoulder.

It's hard to picture really. The nearest I can come is to think of it as being similar to moving roughly 205 pounds of a substance very like a mixture of jello and nearly-set cement - completely dead weight (excuse the pun please) with very little "give" at that stage of rigor.

Harry @ Tue May 30, 2006 9:19 pm wrote:I hate to even mention the subject but ...
Would rigor mortis complicate her removal? According to a web site:
"... It commences after around 3 hours, reaching maximum stiffness after 12 hours, and gradually dissipates until approximately 72 hours after death. ..."
See http://tinyurl.com/mxa2k
We don't know when they brought her down but weren't the photos taken in the afternoon, if I remember somewhere around 3?
If the times are correct and she was killed at 9:30 and removed after 3, that is over 5-1/2 hours and therefore she must have been in some state of rigor.
Even the subject gives me the chills.

I expect that a stiff body would be easier to handle than a limp body.
You can try this at home, just be careful.