92 Second Street

If one were to approach the still-standing house in Fall River, Massachusetts, in which Andrew and Abby met their horrific end, one would see a tall, narrow box of a house that looks fairly small from the outside. And one might nod in agreement with the many writers who assert that one reason Lizzie may have taken a hatchet to the heads of her father and stepmother was because, after twenty years of living there, she could no longer stand being trapped within those confined walls with the two aloof people in control of it. The murders, say these writers, were her desperate attempt at escape from what the prosecution would later claim that she herself had years earlier described to her friend Anna Borden as her “unhappy home.”

Built by contractor Southard Miller, a former employer and longtime friend of Andrew Borden, the house was constructed in boxcar fashion, with rooms that opened one into the other rather than into hallways. This meant the only way to preserve the privacy of the inhabitants was to lock some of the doors between rooms. (Lizzie’s room alone had four doors that opened into other rooms.) Those locked doors, discovered by the police in their initial searches of the house, have also been interpreted as highly symbolic. Angela Carter, in her claustrophobic 1981 short story about the murders, wrote, “A house full of locked doors that open only into other rooms with other locked doors, for, upstairs and downstairs, all the rooms lead in and out of one another like a maze in a bad dream. It is a house without passages. There is no part of the house that has not been marked as some inmate’s personal territory; it is a house with no shared, no common spaces between one room and the next. It is a house of privacies sealed as close as if they had been sealed with wax on a legal document.”

Carter echoed Agnes DeMille, who wrote a 1968 book about developing her ballet about Lizzie and the murders, “The emotional schism in the family was reflected in the physical layout of the rooms.” She added that she looked at the house as a character in itself, “which played a crucial part in all events and devoured Lizzie in the end.”

These are evocative sentences, so skillfully rendered that it seems reasonable to believe that the “gaunt” house on 92 Second Street, so drab and colorless in the crime scene photos, was indeed a house “narrow as a coffin” (Carter’s words), able to swallow Lizzie up (DeMille’s imagery), then trap her inside of it like a cocoon in which she slowly metamorphized into a vicious killer.

Yet, what was the house like in reality?

The Remodeling of the House

Yes, some rooms were not overly large, but neither were they cramped, with 10-foot-high ceilings and tall doorways that made them feel much roomier than the spaces in many houses built the following century. And while there were no bathrooms with tubs (few houses built in 1845 had bathrooms), as soon as city water was available, Andrew had a pump with running water installed in the kitchen sink room, and two flushable toilets installed in the cellar water closet. There was also running water from a sink in the barn. At some point, Andrew installed a coal and wood-burning furnace in the cellar and placed radiators throughout the house so the house would be warm in winter.

As for electricity, it was only sparsely available in 1892, and electric lines for domestic use had yet to reach Second Street. Telephones were starting to show up in businesses but were still rare in private homes. Piped natural gas was available for lighting at that time and was sometimes used in the houses of the elite on The Hill, but gas was also new and unfamiliar to most and known to be dangerous in the days before an odor-causing agent was added to it, causing unexpected explosions and deaths. Thus, many were reluctant to use gas, and clearly Andrew preferred reliable (and more affordable) kerosene lamps to light the house. (John Morse revealed in court that Andrew didn’t light kerosene lamps the night before the murders as they sat talking in the sitting room, leading some to assert that cheap Andrew didn’t “allow” his daughters to have light in the evening, adding to the myth about his miserliness. However, daylight lingers late into the evening during New England summers, so it might be more logical to assume it simply didn’t get dark enough to trouble with lamps before they went to bed.)

A “Practical” House

As for how the house was decorated, many at the time noted the furnishings were somewhat outdated, as is often the case in homes owned by an aging couple, but the furniture was still of good quality. As described by the authors of Parallel Lives, who closely studied the original crime scene photos in their possession at the Fall River Historical Society:

The residence documented in these images is neither fashionable nor opulent, nor is it seedy and impoverished; it is, instead, practical in its appointments, comfortable, and middle class. In a neighborhood abounding with similar structures, it was very much like many in the vicinity. A glance at the rooms captured by the camera’s lens makes it apparent that Andrew J. Borden, a purveyor of furniture and home furnishing goods with wholesale access to all things stylish, had few aspirations to modern elegance in the decoration of his own residence.

Yet, Mrs. J.H. Percy, a correspondent of the New York Herald who visited there, found herself “surprised … that the house was extremely pretty and refined in its appointments. Easy chairs, shaded lamps, books, well-chosen bits of bric-a-brac, cushions and draperies, an open piano, a hundred comforts and pleasing trifles tastefully disposed” that “bespoke pleasantly the character of the occupants.”

The walls in the rooms that had been photographed were covered in wallpaper, continued the authors, in “floral and foliate design, printed on a light ground, complimented with a wide border in a dark, contrasting hue. The carpeting, its field ornamented with large floral and foliate sprays centered on geometric devices, contrasts sharply with the wall covering, as was typical of the period.” The furniture throughout the house was fairly heavy, most of it made of dark wood, with the best pieces being placed in the parlor, where the family entertained company. The walls were also “hung with prints, attractively framed and glazed, and throughout [the sitting room] can be seen evidence of the handiwork of the ladies of the house, in the form of crocheted antimacassars and a knitted afghan, neatly folded on the sofa arm when not in use.”

As for Lizzie’s room, we learn again from Parallel Lives that, “Contemporaneous descriptions of the bedroom occupied by Lizzie A. Borden make it plausible that her chamber was, indeed, the most sumptuously appointed in the house.” From The Fall River Daily Evening News, we learn that the room, “in the middle of the house, with windows on the south side,” had “walls covered with rich, dark paper, which was relieved by handsome red portieres at the doors.” The “windows were draped with taste, and the furniture was neatly arranged.” The “narrow bed for one person” was set at an angle in the northeast corner of the room, on which was arranged “a spread and pillows of spotless white.” The walls were hung with “a few choice engravings,” and “a well-stocked bookcase and photographs secured in foreign travel were visible.”

Meanwhile, Mrs. Percy found the room “as dainty and charming a place as any girl need ask for.” She noted the books and pictures “gathered in [a] foreign journey.” Remarking on the “delicate purity” of Lizzie’s room, the writer wondered: “How could Lizzie Borden have come into the dainty place and removed the traces of such fearful work without marring all the delicate purity of everything with which she had contact? Why, the washstand even is in a recess veiled by a silken curtain. A soiled finger pushing it aside would leave a mark, and there is none.”

Life in the House

Legend has it that the Borden House was a stifling place, all but lifeless, where no one came and went except Andrew on business, and perhaps Lizzie, slipping out for a few hours of freedom on her various errands for the charities with which she was involved before being forced to return to her narrow house. Lincoln described Abby as housebound, too fat to walk anywhere, and completely friendless except for her half-sister, Sarah Whitehead. DeMille also described a lack of any diversions for the occupants:

“There were no sessions with lemonade and cookies in the front parlor, no rocking chairs, iced tea, and embroidery, no reading aloud under the pear tree. Occasionally, but not often, girls came upstairs and chatted with Lizzie for an hour or so in her bedroom. There is no record of a man unrelated to the family, not even a pastor, being asked to the house … There were no theaters, no picnics, no joint shopping expeditions, no trips to Boston or New York, no dances … There were church and charity functions. There was solitary fishing, [but] never any invitations to the good houses.”

Angela Carter’s depiction of life in the house is even more bleak. “The girls stayed at home in their rooms, napping on their beds or repairing ripped hems or sewing loose buttons more securely or writing letters or contemplating acts of charity among the deserving poor or staring vacantly into space. I can’t imagine what else they might do. What the girls do when they are on their own is unimaginable to me.”

How strange that these authors, who presumably took time to research the facts of the case, were so off the mark of what life was really like in the house. Perhaps they were simply embellishing the grim portrayal of the household as presented by Hosea Knowlton at trial in an effort to whip up a believable motive for the murders. Perhaps these authors did not have access to court transcripts or the many newspaper archives that are more easily available to us today. But what we find, if and when we look more closely today, is that the Bordens lived in a busy and bustling household where many visitors walked through the doors.

First, we know that Andrew, who seems not to have kept an office downtown, was frequently visited at the house by business associates and tenants needing to speak with him. (Jonathan Clegg, a new tenant, testified he came to the house to see Andrew twice in the few days before the murders.) His farm employees, Frank Eddy and William Johnson, both reported frequent visits to the house to perform handyman chores and each told police that they were always offered a meal, and sometimes even invited to spend the night. The seamstress, Mrs. Mary Raymond, who came every year to sew new dresses for Abby and Lizzie, usually stayed with the Bordens for weeks at a time. And John Morse clearly had no problem inviting himself over for an impromptu stay, showing up several times over the summer and staying over the night before the murders.

Meanwhile, Abby was anything but housebound. She went out nearly every day to the market. She walked to visit her sister and niece and nephew regularly. And, according to Mrs. Churchill, Mrs. Phoebe Bowen, Mrs. Esther Miller, Mrs. Susan Handy and more, she had a circle of friends that she would visit, and they would often come to visit her at the house. (Mrs. Bowen visited her the evening before the murders, and Lizzie testified that she was expecting overnight company the following Monday.) While Abby wasn’t the inveterate volunteer that Lizzie was, her name occasionally pops-up in newspaper accounts as lending a hand on certain committees or at charitable events.

Emma was more of a cipher. Her name doesn’t show up much except for news of visits with friends, but she does seem to have had a vast network of friends beyond Alice Russell, visiting back and forth and keeping in touch through letters and the giving of gifts. (She was visiting the Brownells in Fairhaven at the time of the murders, having custom dresses made for her. ) We also know that Lizzie was deeply involved in volunteer work and had a tight group of friends of her own who she often went to see, or who would occasionally come to see her. Even Bridget had a fairly busy social life, often going out to visit friends in the evening and sometimes having friends over to visit her; she testified that they would sometimes sit together on the back porch.

So, 92 Second Street was not a quiet house devoid of activity. Many people came and went, and these are merely the instances in which we have a record. Surely many more showed up without it being recorded in a newspaper or court transcript.

Which is why it was odd that after Andrew and Abby were so brutally murdered, the police were so quick to rule out the possibility of an intruder, because they did not see how a “stranger” could get into an unfamiliar house and wreak such havoc undetected. They seemed not to consider that an intruder who wanted Andrew Borden dead would not have been a stranger to the family or to the house at all. As we have seen, any number of people who knew the Bordens well enough to be invited through the doors of that busy household could have come to be familiar with the layout and its inhabitants. Yet, police seem not to have questioned either Lizzie or Emma or Bridget about regular visitors, or even irregular ones. If it was an intruder who killed the Bordens, and not Lizzie, as the jury came to conclude, that intruder got away with it easily due to a stunning lack of police curiosity about anyone other than Lizzie. (See Rush to Judgment.)

Author’s Take

I had read many accounts of the small and cramped Borden house before I booked a night at the Bread and Breakfast there in July 2007. I still remember the surprise I felt walking into a lovely home that felt roomy and cozy. Fourteen guests stayed in eight different bedrooms that night (another bedroom had been added to the attic), along with staff moving about, and it never felt cramped or overcrowded to me, what with four common rooms to wander about downstairs if one includes the kitchen. I was particularly surprised to find that the oft-repeated idea, first put forth by the prosecution, that anything happening in one part of the house could be heard throughout, was nonsense. Even with fourteen people spending the night, I heard little from anywhere else in the house as I slept. (Okay, I actually didn’t sleep much, but not because of noise elsewhere; I was simply excited to be there.)

I more recently spent the night in the Lizzie and Emma “suite” and enjoyed the feel of space in the two rooms with their high ceilings, along with the sense of sumptuousness in the Victorian era décor so at odds with our minimalist sensibilities today. And even though there were numerous people moving about downstairs on a midnight “ghost hunt,” I slept deeply and undisturbed. I never once heard other guests moving about in the two rooms separated from mine by a locked door. One of them was the room in which Abby was killed, and I was specifically listening for sounds from that direction, but I heard the occupants only when they stepped out of their room and into the front entry, which made a loose floorboard creak. The walls of that house are not flimsily built; they are thick and sturdy, and the doors are tall and heavy. Sound seemed not to travel well at all. I now have no problem believing it possible that Lizzie could have been in the house, and perhaps even her own room, unaware, while Abby was being cut down.

Nor can I agree with the prosecution’s theory that the house was so small and mean and lacking in comforts that it drove Lizzie to murder. It was roomy house, spare on the outside, yes, but quite nice on the inside. The one comfort conspicuously lacking at the time was a bathtub, but is it reasonable to conclude that the lack of a good soak drove Lizzie to pick up a hatchet? Or, as George Robinson put it in his closing, would Lizzie, who had her own money in the bank, lived in a house that was the equal of most every other in her neighborhood, and enjoyed the benefits of a full-time servant, truly be “wrought up to frenzy and madness, so that she would murder her own father for want of things?”

It is true that Lizzie and Emma both longed to move to a more modern house up on the hill, and according to several people (Mrs. Brigham and William Chace among them), Andrew was taking initial steps to make that happen for his daughters. But whatever Lizzie’s ambition was for a new living space, it’s clear she wasn’t thinking of something lavish. After she was acquitted of the murders, and after she and her sister had control of their inheritance, they did indeed buy a larger house on the fringe of the Hill. But, unlike the myth that tells us Lizzie bought herself a big mansion, the house chosen by Lizzie and Emma was not that much larger and not that much more valuable than 92 Second Street. Instead of a 2288 square foot house that cost Andrew $10,000, Lizzie and Emma bought a 2802 square foot house on French Street for $13,000. They acquired an extra 500 square feet and a bathtub at last.

As for 92 Second Street, Lizzie and Emma decided not to sell it. Instead, they converted it back to a two-family dwelling and then leased it out to tenants, allowing them to collect rent for years to come. They learned well from their father, and he no doubt would have approved such a wise investment.

For those who want to satisfy their own curiosity about 92 Second Street with a tour or a stay, visit www.lizzie-borden.com.

For a more thorough look at the house, floor by floor, along with plentiful photos, see Kat Koorey’s exhaustive examination in these articles available at The Hatchet Online.

• The Borden House, Frame By Frame, Part One
• The Borden House, Frame By Frame, Part Two
• The Borden House, Frame By Frame, Part Three
• The Borden House, Frame By Frame, Part Four