Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I direct your attention to: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=74

I tried unsuccessfully to bring the whole thread here, but wound up only bumping it to the top of Fall River Gatherings. *grump*

So anyway, I found this thread while looking for the one mentioned by Curryong earlier today in the "All About Abby" thread -- which always makes me think of Bette Davis in "All About Eve," ("Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night").

Don't miss the fabulous photos, descriptions of the house in this thread by a forum member named Robert Harry who appears to be still a member (come back!) and especially the surprising description of the Borden house by a contemporary female reporter.

Now, back to looking for Curryong's referenced thread....

that was a fun read. thanks for pointing it out! loved reading all the (often very detailed) descriptions of visits to the house, and surrounding areas.

i haven't been able to find the thread curryong referenced either. yet!

i found this interesting:

Postby FairhavenGuy » Tue May 18, 2004 5:22 am

Folks, I've got another closet question, that makes me wonder if, at first, the "painted" dress was hidden in plain sight.

Testimony of George W. Allen (pages 434-435)
MOODY: Went where?
ALLEN: When I went out of the dining-room I saw a closet there, and I thought I would look into the closet, and then I looked into a clothes-press there was nigh the stove.
MOODY: In the dining-room?
ALLEN: No in the kitchen.
MOODY: In the kitchen?
ALLEN: Yes, sir.

This seems to be the closet next to the stove, which Bridget says is "where the wood and coal was kept." It seems to also be the same "cupboard" that Alice saw Lizzie pulling the dress from s she burned it. Why would Allen call this closet "nigh the stove" a "clothes-press" unless he saw something (perhaps the dress) inside it?

what if lizzie did remove her dress and clean up down in the cellar, bring the dress up and put it in that closet next to the stove, so it'd be handy to burn when she had the chance? no real problem if bridget saw it. she could just tell her it was the house dress that had the paint on it, and she was planning on burning it.

i can't think of why allen would otherwise call a kitchen cabinet a clothes press, if there were no clothes in it.

unless, as was suggested on that thread, for some odd reason he called all closets 'clothes presses.'

Good one, Catbooks. While it seems a little far-fetched that Lizzie would hang the dress inside the door in a way that (a) allow Bridget to notice it had blood on it; or, (b) would make Moody think he was looking into a kitchen clothes press, it does make sense. It's a very odd reference for Moody to make otherwise.

'92 and a Half' is fifth thread down on Page 43 of the topics, girls! Why is my computer playing up like this!

Ah. Got it. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=187 Can't wait to read. Thanks, Curryong.

thank you! i'm still reading it :)

mara, from what i've read, the closet next to the stove had only shelves, with coal, wood for the stove, and lizzie's flat irons in it. if she'd folded the dress and put it on one of the shelves, it could easily enough be mistaken for a rag by someone outside of the household. if bridget saw, she already knew it had paint on it, and likely wouldn't question lizzie about it anyway.

Good point, Catbooks. That's been my understanding, too. I based my comment on Moody's having mistaken that cupboard/utility closet for a "clothes-press," suggesting Lizzie's dress was possibly hanging on the inside of the door on a hook or something. Don't you love the expressions that seep into the transcripts, like "nigh the stove"? I can hear the voices.

i do love reading the expressions :). nigh the stove, mrs. churchill's 'o, must i?" it's hard to believe ordinary people spoke that way on an everyday basis.

well there may have been a hook in the closet we don't know about, although from the looks of it, it was fairly shallow. still, allen may have just looked in, seen the dress folded on a shelf, and assumed it was a clothes press. we know the waist of that dress was on a shelf in that closet when alice saw lizzie tearing it up and burning it. she had the skirt in her hands (so both emma and alice said, so i think that was true) at that point. had she just removed the skirt from the shelf, leaving the waist to be torn up right afterwards? why else would the waist have been in the closet?

if lizzie had taken the dress down to the kitchen, after emma had seen it the night before in the closet and told lizzie she should destroy it, why put it in the cupboard first?

This ended up in the wrong forum when I attempted to quote:

QUOTE:
Kat wrote:"The Mrs. Borden who threw her three children into the cistern of the house south of Mr. Borden's residence is in no way related to any of the deceased. Thus no claim of insanity can be drawn from that quarter." --pg. 58, Lizzie Borden: A Case Book of Family and crime in the 1890's.
Edited by Joyce G. Williams, J. Eric Smithburn, M. Jeanne Peterson. T.I.S. Publications, 1980.

This refers to a Borden wife which makes her not related to Lizzie.



What gives me food for thought is that the Borden family from the outside looking in may have been far different from the Borden family on the inside looking out. Every family has skeletons in its closet but throwing three children into a cistern and then committing suicide is a pretty big thing. Makes me wonder about the male-female dynamics in Andrew's home.

For those members of the Forum who might not have heard of the previous murder/suicide, Andrew Borden's uncle, good ole Lawdwick Borden (the version of his Christian name that is on his tombstone according to 'Warps and Wefts') married four times. Eliza Darling Borden was Lawdwick's second wife.
In 1848 she dropped two of the three children into the cellar cistern of the family home, killing them. A third child, a daughter, escaped. Eliza then committed suicide by cutting her throat. The family's little Cape Cod home was near to the later Borden residence on Second Street.
Supposedly, paranormal activity connected with the dead children has been noted by some guests staying at the Borden B and B., children's laughter heard and so on. Why would the little ghosts infest a place that in their time on earth hadn't been built yet? Of course, we know that time means nothing in the next world but it's very odd!

I agree with Catbooks. I understood the cupboard next to the stove to be primarily for the storage of coal and sometimes wood. You wouldn't think a coal cupboard would resemble a clothes press or have a hook. I suppose the piece of dress Alice glimpsed on the shelf in there was put there temporarily while Miss Lizzie was busy tearing up the rest of the garment. Emma of course was silent while she was doing this, getting on with her washing up. Emma knew very well that Lizzie shouldn't have been doing what she was doing but of course no word of protest came from her lips.

she cut her own throat?!

i knew about the children in the well, and that she committed suicide afterwards, but not that she'd done it by cutting her own throat! holy moly.

i was about to run a bit with debbie's theory, that perhaps that mr. borden was abusive to both the children and his wife, that perhaps she couldn't think up any way out for them and did that out of sheer desperation. which i guess could still be the case, but wow. very sad, the whole thing. i can't even imagine what it was like for the poor child who survived all that.

yes, you wouldn't think the spirits of the children would be in the borden house, which didn't exist while they were alive, plus 3 stories into the air.

It sounds awful, but I suppose there weren't that many methods of suicide open to females in those days. They couldn't put their head in a gas oven because gas stoves just weren't around in the 1840's. Overdose of pills like sleeping pills, possible I suppose, but doctors handed out sleeping draughts didn't they? They might not have known how to load and operate the guns of the time. Hanging, throwing oneself into a river loaded down with rocks and cutting the throat with a razor seem to have been the most common forms of suicide for both sexes.

yes, hanging and drowning oneself in the river seem to have been the most popular. maybe she didn't have any medications to overdose on, or any guns in the house. i've heard of people slitting their wrists before, but not their throats! you'd heard of that before?

Yes, unfortunately, in England anyway, cutting the throat seems to have been quite a common means of suicide and murder throughout the 19th century. The aptly named cut-throat razors were quite deadly.

really? that's so sad

Back in Prohibition days my Dad worked for a moonshiner who was incredibly abusive to wife and family. He was found one day his throat cut, a suicide, except people did wonder since he positioned his body so the blood ran into a wash tub thus not making a mess. Most everyone figured his wife did it; she was a strong woman who fought back. And no one seemed to blame her.

I must have a sick sense of humour, since I found it amusing in a way that she fixed the murder scene so that she wouldn't have to clean up any mess. And she got her freedom.

Curryong wrote:… Eliza Darling Borden was Lawdwick's second wife.
In 1848 she dropped two of the three children into the cellar cistern of the family home, killing them. A third child, a daughter, escaped. Eliza then committed suicide by cutting her throat. The family's little Cape Cod home was near to the later Borden residence on Second Street. …

Yes, the one story Cape-Cod Style home is actually located next door to 92 Second Street; it is Dr. Kelly’s old house.
http://lizziebordenwarpsandwefts.com/th ... ck-borden/
http://fallriverpaintedladies.wordpress ... ed-houses/

The Kelly staircase leading down into the old cellar where the tragedies took place, really gives me chills – especially when this picture is enlarged!!!
http://lizziebordenwarpsandwefts.com/ta ... ng-borden/

Geez. The second step from the top at the upper right...when enlarged looks like the hand print of a child.

There's certainly rather a weird light shining there!

Yes! I can see it! Clearly a little handprint.