Yesterday in Old Fall River.
Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 11:42 pm
Have been dipping into Yesterday in Old Fall River, a Lizzie Borden Companion, by Paul Dennis Hoffman.
The guy certainly has the best of intentions, and no doubt the book has a lot of valuable information, but it is so riddled with careless errors as to make it difficult to know when to trust it.
Some of it is merely out of date, as when it says that no record of Hiram Harrington’s inquest testimony is currently available. The same applies to Augusta Tripp’s which he mistakenly attributes to Mrs. A.B. Tripp who operated the restaurant at 80 Second Street.
My favorite (an obvious slip) is: “Jane E.D. Gray was the widow of Oliver Gray and the father of Abby’s half-sister, Sarah (Gray) Whitehead.”
Priscilla Fish is described as “the half-sister of both Sarah (Gray) Whitehead and Abby Borden” (she was Abby's full sister) in the entry devoted to her (where her birth year is given (correctly) as 1820), but under the entry for Sarah Sawyer Gray (1794-1860), the first wife of Oliver Gray, who is described (correctly) as “the mother of Abby Durfee (Gray) Borden,” Hoffman then says, “After she died, Oliver married Jane E.D. Baker, the mother of Sarah (Gray) Whitehead and Priscilla (Gray) Fish. Hello?
The guy certainly has the best of intentions, and no doubt the book has a lot of valuable information, but it is so riddled with careless errors as to make it difficult to know when to trust it.
Some of it is merely out of date, as when it says that no record of Hiram Harrington’s inquest testimony is currently available. The same applies to Augusta Tripp’s which he mistakenly attributes to Mrs. A.B. Tripp who operated the restaurant at 80 Second Street.
My favorite (an obvious slip) is: “Jane E.D. Gray was the widow of Oliver Gray and the father of Abby’s half-sister, Sarah (Gray) Whitehead.”
Priscilla Fish is described as “the half-sister of both Sarah (Gray) Whitehead and Abby Borden” (she was Abby's full sister) in the entry devoted to her (where her birth year is given (correctly) as 1820), but under the entry for Sarah Sawyer Gray (1794-1860), the first wife of Oliver Gray, who is described (correctly) as “the mother of Abby Durfee (Gray) Borden,” Hoffman then says, “After she died, Oliver married Jane E.D. Baker, the mother of Sarah (Gray) Whitehead and Priscilla (Gray) Fish. Hello?
