Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I believe I read in Rebello a few weeks ago that one of the photos Porter has in his book is the wrong one. It isn't Dr. Bowen, is it?

WILL THE REAL MR ROBINSON PLEASE STEP FOWARD.......

Rebello's book has this on page 359:

"The photograph of Att. Robinson in Porter's book is actually Oliver Ames of Easton, Massachusetts. (See Chafflin, History of Easton, p. 258)"

An Oliver Ames was the Governor of Mass. following Robinson. There was also an Oliver Ames, Jr. The son was questioned during jury selection (page 24 of the trial):

"OLIVER AMES, 2nd, Easton. Not related to the parties.
Q. Have you formed or expressed any opinion in relation to the case?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Have you any bias or prejudice?
A. Yes, sir.
Excused."

From newspaper accounts he was opposed to the death penalty.

The photo of Governor Ames, IMO, doesn't seem to resemble the photo in Porter's book. Perhaps this is not the Oliver Ames mentioned in Rebello.

Thanks, mb and Harry! Thanks for posting the photos, too!





"Boy! We're gonna have ourselves a time here! ... Uh, what're we gonna do?" - Gene Hackman as 'Buck Barrow', Bonnie & Clyde.

Harry, the photo you have is from the dreaded Wikipedia. I cannot find an online copy of the History of Easton, so perhaps the image you post is also not him. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts site does not include a portrait of the former governor either.

Ames was governor after Robinson, by the way, which is an interesting tidbit in and of itself.

Here's a park service site with a photo of Oliver Ames, at http://www.nps.gov/archive/gosp/research/ames.html

This photo of Ames is from Find-A-Grave and closely resembles the man in Porter's book:



Here's the URL for Find-A-Grave:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cg ... d=15300593

There appears to be several men with that name.

Harry,

If you hop over to http://www.archive.org, select "American Libraries" as a source from the dropdown then search for Oliver Ames, one result will come up - a small book titled A memorial of Oliver Ames. The gent in question was apparently born at Plymouth, Mass 5th November 1807, deceased at North Easton 9th March 1877. Not many pages into the volume there's a photo of Ames - or what appears to be a photograph anyway - sometimes it's not easy to tell in the older books. The image, however, appears identical to the one on the nps.gov site I found.

(That FindaGrave image looks more like Oakes Ames than Oliver to me.)

If he died in 1877 it can't be our Oliver Ames. Our "Ollie" was governor after Robinson in 1887.

I'm pretty satisfied the photo from Find-A-Grave is our man. The fellow who posted it has a long history of posting to that site.

BTW, remove the comma after .org. It makes the URL invalid.

Harry, the link/memorial volume I found seems to concern Oliver Ames, Sr. Appears to be the same family though.

Oh this is interesting: If the information at http://www.eastonmass.net/historic/oliver3.htm is correct, the information I located, the feller was Governor Ames's grandfather.

Interesting posts, Doug and Harry. The park site Doug found gives a good history of the family background. (I did have to laugh seeing that this family, mentioned in conjunction with the Borden case, were in the shovel making business. )

Geez, I just opened this book of New Bedford Evening Standard articles I bought at the FRHS a while back for a totally different purpose, and on June 9, 1893 I find:

"A New Jury
Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale and ex-governor Ames are on a new jury for the Borden trial. The New York Recorder has asked these two gentlemen and John F. Andrew, George Fred Williams, Colonel A.A. Pope, and Mrs. Lucy Stone, all of Massachusetts, and General Thomas L. James, Hon. J. Edward Simmons, Hon. William Sulzer, Hon. De Lancey Nicoli, Mr. Samuel Gompers, and T.S. Robertson, all of New York, to say, after the trial, whether the case against Lizzie Borden is "proven" or "not proven", and the twelve had consented."

So are we in agreement that Wikipedia is incorrect . . . . again . . .

And again.....

I never use Wikipedia. It is no friend of a good researcher.

Thanks for the extra little snippet you found, Sherry!

Frank Ames and Oliver Ames
I've included the Title page with the excerpt.
It is a Google book, btw.

Speaking of Google Books...

Just an aside: I had downloaded a book called Famous Mysteries, by John Elfreth Watkins, 1919 and upon looking at it, near the very beginning is this handjotted notation:

"This is a rather amusing book, but if the percentage of rot and mis-statement is as high throughout, as it is in the cases I know about, the book is worse than worthless as even near-history."-- it wasn't me!

Wikipedia is a MESS.

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5122766/wik ... t-of-a-job

How come there's only 1 download? There's 2 bios there, on brothers Ames, and a photo to be had! Yum!

Who writes Wikipedia?

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia

Just thought you might like to read this. Fascinating stuff!!

Kat @ Sun Jan 04, 2009 2:41 am wrote:How come there's only 1 download? There's 2 bios there, on brothers Ames, and a photo to be had! Yum!

I believe that was my download.