Cats ^(Myth)

In 1972, Robert Sullivan, author of Goodbye, Lizzie Borden, interviewed Mrs. Abby Potter, the niece of Abby Borden. At the time, the former Little Abby Whitehead, named for her aunt, was 89 years old, and she had reached out to Sullivan to tell him the following story of Lizzie’s alleged cruelty toward Abby, which he recounted in his book:

It wasn’t the first time Abby Potter told that story. In 1969, three years before she spoke to Sullivan, she gave an interview to the Providence Evening Bulletin in which she relayed that her mother (Sarah Whitehead) told her Lizzie had killed a cat in the Borden cellar, only in that interview, Potter said Lizzie had killed her own cat.  

It should be remembered that Lizzie was thoroughly disliked by the Whiteheads even before the murders. Furthermore, as they were convinced by Lizzie’s arrest that Lizzie had indeed killed Abby, it is not surprising they would believe the worst of her in every respect. Little Abby was only eight years old when tragedy struck her world, and it is likely she would have heard, and wholeheartedly believed, any number of whispered stories about Lizzie and her ill-feeling for cats. And it would seem this story was being whispered as early as June of 1893, when district attorney Hosea Knowlton received an anonymous letter saying that a man who daily delivered milk to the Bordens claimed he “knew for a fact that Miss Lizzie had decapitated a kitten which belonged to her stepmother.”

Another version of the “Lizzie beheaded a cat” story appears in the book, Parallel Lives, from the Fall River Historical Society. In June of 1893, a Boston woman wrote to district attorney Knowlton (while he was prosecuting Lizzie at the jury trial) to relay a story she heard from her manicurist, Titia Thomas. “In typical tittle-tattle fashion,” Titia said “a friend of hers told her that she (the friend) was told by a friend of Lizzie Borden that, while visiting Lizzie at her house one day, she was frightened by a cat jumping upon her lap.” Whether the individual was afraid of cats, or simply disliked them, is not known, but “she cried out” and Lizzie took the cat in her arms and left the room. Absent for about fifteen to twenty minutes, Lizzie eventually returned, remarking to her guest, “That cat won’t ever bother you again!” When asked, “Why not?” she replied, “I’ve chopped its head off.” Several decades later, Edmund Pearson, who had access to Knowlton’s papers, would repeat a version of the story in an essay entitled “The End of the Borden Case: The Final Word,” only in his version there was no guest in the house, just a kitten who irritated Lizzie and thus met its grisly end in the cellar.

Yet another story that portrays Lizzie being cruel to one cat, while alternately being kind to another, shows up in Agnes de Mille’s Dance of Death.

“The following scene, however, was recounted by the daughter of the Borden’s caretaker farmer. Walking and chatting with Lizzie about one of Mr. Borden’s farms, he noticed a cat which kept rubbing against Lizzie’s skirt. It must have annoyed the older woman for she suddenly leaned down, grabbed the cat by the tail, swung it twice around her head at arm’s length, and let it fly, screeching and clawing, in an arc about fifty feet away. Not one whit out of breath, she resumed conversation with her wide-eyed companion. In fairness, however, it must be recounted that a small cat on another farm, hurt by a scythe while the farmer cut grass, drew Lizzie’s entire sympathy, and she bound up the gash and nursed it solicitously, making several trips from home to do so.”

While it is almost certainly not true that Lizzie—who famously loved animals and left a big chunk of her estate to the Animal Rescue League—chopped the head off a cat, it could be true that she did put a cat down. In the book, Lizzie Borden: Past and Present, Leonard Rebello cites a Boston Herald story from August 8, 1892, about the druggist who owned Brow’s Pharmacy and was asked if Lizzie had been there to ask for prussic acid as she had been accused of doing at another drug store. “Mr. Brow said Lizzie traded at his store, and he had known Lizzie for the past twenty years. He assured the reporter Lizzie did not purchase any prussic acid. He recalled that Lizzie stopped trading at his store about four years ago. Her last purchase was chloroform, stating she wanted it for the purpose of killing a cat. Mr. Brow states Miss Borden asked for the stuff in rather a surly manner, and he answered just as saucily. Miss Borden paid for the chloroform and went out. She has never been in the shop since.”

It is unclear from this story what cat Lizzie may have been referring to. Other than Little Abby’s story, there is no other reference in transcripts or newspaper articles to the Bordens having had any pets. Could this be the same cat that was to later feature in the older Abby Potter’s much embellished story about Lizzie killing a cat? Could a family cat have become old or sick and needed to be put out of its misery? Or could Lizzie have encountered a stray that was injured and needed to be put down?

Whatever the answer to the question, we know that a cat did at one time win Lizzie’s affection. While staying in Taunton jail and awaiting trial, a prison mouser named Daisy would spend time with Lizzie in her small cell. At one point, as she wrote in a letter to her friend, Annie Lindsey, the cat had jumped onto her lunch tray and sent the dishes crashing. “I was provoked,” said Lizzie dryly, “You may be sure.” But despite broken dishes, Lizzie clearly welcomed the feline friendship. (For more on Lizzie’s relationship to furry and feathered creatures, see Animals and Lizzie.)