After the Verdict

On June 20th, 1893, after thirteen days of testimony about the Borden murders in the Superior Court of Bristol County, with spectators waiting breathlessly, the clerk intoned, “Lizzie Andrew Borden, stand up.” Lizzie, dressed in black, did so. “Now,” said the clerk, “Hold up your right hand, look upon the foreman; foreman look upon the prisoner. Have you found a verdict?” The foreman replied, “We have.”

Most newspapers described the wave of cheers that brought much of the audience to its feet. Sheriff Wright, who had known Lizzie as a child, wiped tears of joy from his eyes, the lawyers for the defense were visibly jubilant and, after hugs and squeezes of hands, they accompanied Lizzie and her entourage of friends and pastors into a judge’s room to catch their breath and laugh.

Inside that room, Lizzie spoke to Julian Ralph, one of the few reporters she trusted. “A good many persons have talked to me as if they thought I would go and live somewhere else when my trial was over. I don’t know what possesses them. I am going home, and I am going to stay here. I never thought of doing anything else.”   

An hour later when Lizzie emerged from the courthouse, a crowd waited to greet her with more cheers. Victoria Lincoln described the scene in her book, Lizzie’s “smiles became brilliant when she saw the waiting throngs … After she had been helped into her carriage, she did not let it drive on until a long, long procession of men and women had filed past her, hungry to shake her hand. Small children were lifted up for the privilege, and babies, for her to kiss.” Lizzie declared herself “the happiest woman in the world.”

While many expected she would be taken to the train depot, the carriage kept going, said one newspaper, taking “the rocky road from New Bedford to Fall River … In a little over an hour, they reached 67 Pine Street, the home of Mr. Charles J. Holmes, to celebrate the verdict.” Lincoln described the party that followed as “wonderfully gay,” and said Lizzie’s friends “had collected newspapers from far and near, full of sketches of Lizzie that they all found hilariously bad likenesses. Lizzie herself laughed heartily over them.”

That night, Emma and Lizzie slept at the Holmes residence to avoid the crowd of hundreds that had gathered at 92 Second Street. According to newspaper accounted, there was even a band waiting for them, which entertained the crowd by playing Auld Lang Syne. But the sisters missed that welcome and didn’t get home until the next morning where, after spending ten harrowing and lonely months in prison, Lizzie Borden at last walked through her own front door.  

Longing for Normal

After the joyful reaction to the verdict, with many newspaper editorials expressing their approval, Lizzie must have felt vindicated. She had every reason to expect that most in Fall River would take the jury’s word that she was “not guilty.” Certainly, she was eager to resume her life. But the crowds that lingered outside 92 Second Street in those first days, full of people eager to get a glimpse of her, undoubtedly made it difficult to relax.

It’s no wonder that Lizzie took up an offer from Charles Holmes to stay at a relative’s house in Newport, Rhode Island, for a week to get used to the feeling of freedom. The Borden sisters managed to slip out of town in early July with no reporters the wiser and make it to the house of the Covell family. Lizzie was able to simply be for a short time without the glare of attention. It was there, on the porch of the Covell home, either on that visit, or perhaps a later one, that someone took the only nearly full-length photo of Lizzie as she stood behind a chair. She held a book or magazine in her hand, her finger marking the page where she had been reading. Her hair was in a bit of disarray and, unlike every other photo taken of her, she was faintly smiling.

Back home, Lizzie and Emma tried to return their lives to some kind of normalcy, but the attention Lizzie hoped would fade wasn’t going anywhere. As described by the authors Parallel Lives, a simple walk downtown to speak to Charles Cook, the business agent the sisters inherited from Andrew, not only drew crowds but newspaper attention.

It was reported that “it did not take long to pass the word that Lizzie Borden was on the street … Out of offices and stores rushed the clerks, and people appeared in upper windows, all curiously watching the movements of the celebrated people.” Not to be left out, the “street hoodlums feel in their wake,” with the mob continuing on, “a small crowd of urchins followed them, until the Misses Borden stepped into Dr. Bowen’s house” on Second Street.

A similar brouhaha accompanied the sisters when, a month after her acquittal, Lizzie decided to take a train to visit Mrs. Mary Wright at Taunton jail to personally thank her for her kindness over the long months of her incarceration. According to an article put out by Taunton’s Old Colony History Museum, on that day in July, the Taunton Gazette got wind of the trip and, before the train from Fall River had even arrived in town, a reporter for the paper, in a “misguided attempt to be funny,” sent out a story over the AP wire that Lizzie Borden was “voluntarily” heading to Taunton jail, presumably to confess to the murders. She was said to be seeking the safety of the jail for “safekeeping against possible mob violence.” What happened instead was that people took the story literally and began showing up at depot and jail. They dogged Lizzie and Emma every step while they were in that town, reportedly even following them to a confectionary to buy something sweet to add to the picnic they’d brought for Sheriff and Mrs. Wright.

Such attention must have been disconcerting to Lizzie, who, after living in the uncomfortable glare of a spotlight for nearly a year, wanted nothing more than to live free from the attention. But it was not to be, not in those early days, and in many ways, not ever. As again described in Parallel Lives, “The realization that she had exchanged one prison for another was to come gradually, inflicting a dull pain that would cut into her flesh with agonizing sharpness.”

Shunned at Church

Certainly the sharpest cut to Lizzie, carrying the deepest pain, came at the end of July, more than a month after her acquittal, when she returned to Central Congregational, the church where she had been such a devoted volunteer in the years before the murders. The papers covered her attendance at the Sunday service, even describing who accompanied her. What they did not describe was the reception she received on that day. Helen Leighton, Lizzie’s closest friend in her later life, would later tell the Fall River Herald what Lizzie remembered of the experience. “Women drew their skirts about them and turned away from her and men whom she had known for years passed her without a word of greeting.”

The authors of Parallel Lives confirmed Lizzie’s chilly reception at the church and relayed the account of one witness, Marion Fuller Holman, who had actually been in the church on the July day Lizzie first went back. She “vividly remembered that Sunday, seeing row after row, usually ‘filled with the familiar faces of those who gathered to worship every week,’ now vacant.” The stark image had a “powerful impact” on young Marion, being such a clear “physical manifestation of the judgement” passed on Lizzie that day.

More negative attention would soon come with the quick publication of The Fall River Tragedy, Edwin Porter’s book on the murders, primarily a compilation of articles he had written on the case. Porter was the crime reporter for the Fall River Globe, a paper known for sensationalized yellow journalism that had, from the very first days after the murders, pinned the blame on Lizzie and demanded her arrest. Due to his close relationship with the police, and especially with Officer Philip Harrington, Porter had been one of the three reporters allowed into the house on the day of the murders. He was the one who broke the story about Eli Bence identifying Lizzie as the woman who tried to buy prussic acid from him. He was also the reporter who got jail matron Hannah Reagan to feed him a story, later debunked at trial, that she overheard an argument between Lizzie and Emma which Porter implied amounted to a confession.

Not surprisingly, Porter’s book depicted Lizzie as a murderer who got away with it. (Also not surprisingly, the Globe would print yearly stories on the anniversary of the murders that blared the murderer of Andrew and Abby still walked freely among them.) Rumors that Lizzie bought up all the copies in the print run of the book and had them destroyed would spring up decades later and become a much repeated part of Lizzie Borden mythology. But Lizzie did no such thing; she simply did what she always did with negative press about her, she ignored it.

Not long after, another slim book that implied Lizzie got away with murder, The Mystery Unveiled, was published under the pseudonym, Todd Lunday. The book, full of shallow arguments (albeit cleverly worded), sarcastically concluded that since Lizzie Borden had been acquitted and no one else could have committed the murders, then no one killed the Bordens. In 1893, there was a burning interest to discover who actually wrote the book, with the popular opinion that it was someone in law enforcement who was bitter at the outcome of the trial. It was said that even the Pinkerton Detective Agency tried to pin down the real identity of the author, but the secret remained. It would be over 100 years before the Fall River Historical Society would find a note from the author in the files of Marshal Rufus Hilliard, revealing himself to be Todd Lunday. It was a man no one would have guessed, a man who had never been connected to the case, but clearly a man who was outraged by the verdict: a retired pastor named Cyrus Harp.

Lizzie and Emma Buy a House

Even if the sisters hadn’t wanted to move out of 92 Second Street before the murders, it was then nearly impossible for them to remain living there. Not only were there ghastly memories of the tragedy connected to the house, but the curious were still drawn to it and would often tromp through the yard and try to peek into the windows. They eventually had to put up a sign that said, “Trespassing on these premises is forbidden by the owners.”

While many expected that Lizzie, after realizing there would be no warm welcome for her in Fall River, would take her hard-won freedom and leave the city behind to start a new life. Instead, she and Emma went house hunting up on The Hill. Lizzie’s staunch supporter Charles Holmes told a reporter that the sisters wanted to “live in a quiet, unobtrusive way” in the hope of winning “the respect of everybody in the city.”

But there was nothing unobtrusive about their house shopping excursions by carriage on the Hill. While looking at different properties, newspapermen followed them as always, reporting on every move they made, including what they wore. It was often noted that while Emma still wore black in mourning, Lizzie dressed in lighter colors. “Fall River takes it all in,” said the New York Times, “splutters about it, and thinks that, after all that has occurred, she might wear a bit of mourning.”

Their move to the house in the first week of September 1893, was closely observed by crowds and reported in the newspapers. Once the sisters moved in, the more curious citizens of Fall River would make the trek up to French Street to see where Lizzie Borden had set up house. As their new home was off the beaten path, unlike their house on Second Street so close to downtown, the annoyances of being eternally watched were less. Never gone, but at least less. They could finally feel they had some modicum of privacy, and they gratefully settled in.

As for the house of tragedy at 92 Second Street that they had just vacated, newspapers speculated they would either sell it or have it demolished and build something else there. They did neither. Instead, they had remodeled back into the two-family dwelling it had formerly been, and by late October they were collecting rents from two new tenants. No doubt their father, Andrew, would have approved such a financially sensible decision.

Putting their new house together, buying new furnishings, must have been absorbing for the sisters who finally had the financial freedom to make their own choices. As for servants, having sold one of the Swansea farms to allegedly help raise lawyer fees, the sisters brought Alfred Johnson, the man who had managed that farm for Andrew, to French Street and made him their new coachman. They also hired a new maid.

The following month, in October, Lizzie capped off a most interesting several months with a trip to Chicago for the 1893 World’s Fair, along with Alice Buck, the Reverend Buck’s daughter. After seeing such dazzling sights, she must have come home to her new house in Fall River at least somewhat hopeful that the din created by the murders and her trial would finally begin to die down. She must have hoped she would be left in peace to live the quiet life of respectability she had once worked so hard for, and apparently still longed for. If so, she would again be disappointed.   

The Evolution of Ostracism

Emma and Lizzie reportedly planned an unobtrusive life, yes, but surely they hoped to be able to welcome longtime friends within their new fashionable home. And perhaps a number called on them in the beginning, but over the following year fewer visitors came. That didn’t necessarily mean those who had steadily defended Lizzie throughout her arrest and trial suddenly believed her guilty, but many in the more elite social circles of Fall River still had doubts about her. By unspoken agreement, most shut their doors against their new neighbor and her unsavory history and declared that “they would never talk about it.”

Over the next few years, remaining friendly with Lizzie came with a steep social cost, and most of her one-time defenders slowly abandoned her, one by one. First, the Holmes family drifted away. The Bucks and Brighams and Bowens hung in there for quite a few more years, but eventually they, too, ended their interactions with Lizzie. It must have been incredibly painful for Lizzie and for Emma, too. Emma must have felt stuck in the middle, as she often stayed close to those who had dropped Lizzie. (Then again, perhaps it was Emma who helped seal the fate between Lizzie and her friends. It seems that when Emma and Lizzie became estranged, their mutual friends, such as the daughters of Reverend Buck, felt forced to pick a side.)

Lizzie, perhaps, could have helped her social situation by speaking to a press that clamored to hear from her and tell a story that would win her sympathy. In the days after the murders, newspapers predicted she would soon do so, with Edmund Pearson pointing to a piece in Providence Journal. “There remained the evidence that justified [Lizzie’s] arrest, and this had not been explained away. Now that Miss Borden could speak freely, and no one could use it against, she surely would tell—since she is innocent. She must have some coherent and reasonable account of her actions on the morning of the murders, and there must be some means of corroborating it.” Lincoln also wrote that “her friends expected her to clear up many questions once the trial was over,” but that “she never did.”

Lizzie’s stubborn refusal to explain some of the more alarming accusations made against her in court has always perplexed case observers. She hated the negative attention that followed her, but she never attempted to tell the story of the murders from her perspective. There were certainly plenty of reporters sympathetic to her after the trial; ones who would have treated her fairly. Yet it seems Lizzie understood the unspoken consensus amongst the upper-class of Fall River that “we don’t talk about that anymore.” Maybe she simply felt she was following the rules as she understood them.

Or perhaps Lizzie had learned the hard way that no matter what she said, it would never satisfy; she would be picked apart, and perhaps worse. With her inquest testimony as an example, answering questions from those with suspicions could lead to actual harm. In the one interview she did give, while waiting for trial, she told reporter (and friend) Kate McGuirk that “it seems as if every word I have uttered has been distorted and such a false construction placed on it that I am bewildered. I can’t understand it.” One can see why she may have concluded that speaking up for herself only led to more judgment against her, never to sympathy.

It also seems that Governor Robinson, the attorney who so ably defended her at trial, advised her to protect herself and refuse to speak to unscrupulous reporters, at least according to a letter she wrote to her friend, Mrs. Annie Lindsey. Lizzie described how a number of reporters tried to trick her into speaking with them by claiming someone she knew sent them. And so, she began a lifelong habit of declining to speak with anyone she did not know who came to her door.

But into the void of the unknown that Lizzie left behind her, spilled rumor after rumor, negative story after negative story, untruth after untruth.

The Allure of Gossip

In December 1896, a story appeared in the Fall River Daily Globe, which by now had earned a reputation for sensationalist claptrap, declaring that Lizzie was engaged to be married to Orrin Gardner, distant cousin and family friend who lived in Swansea. The was, of course, not true. The source of the story was said to be Lizzie’s dressmaker and friend, Mrs. Emma Cummings, and, in Parallel Lives, we find a letter Lizzie wrote to her friend assuring her that “never for a moment did I think you or your girls” started that “silly story.” She apologized profusely to Mrs. Cummings for having received negative attention because of their friendship, and said, “I am feeling very badly about it but I must bear as I have in the past. I do hope you will not be annoyed again.”

By that time, Lizzie had clearly grown accustomed to being the target of false stories, most of them simply wrong, like a supposed engagement that never was, or like another odd engagement story that came out the following year, claiming that Lizzie was going to marry one of the members of the jury that acquitted her.

Not all stories were simply annoying; some were actively harmful. For example, in February 1897, a story appeared in the Providence Journal under the headline, “Charged with Stealing—Warrant Issued for the Arrest of Lizzie Borden.” According to Parallel Lives, at one time a pair of “painted porcelains” had gone missing from the Tilden-Thurber Company, a Providence jeweler that Lizzie frequented, and no one knew why. Some months later, a woman entered the store bearing a porcelain plaque in need of repair, which was recognized by the clerk as one that previously had been discovered missing.” When asked where she got the plaque, the woman said it had been a gift from Lizzie Borden, a family friend. Supposedly, the police were called and visited Lizzie at her home on French Street in Fall River, where they found the other missing plaque. Lizzie then told the officer that she purchased both for $16 each. The jeweler claimed the price for the pair was $100.

From there, the Chief of Police in Providence confirmed that a warrant had been issued, but the warrant was never served. Andrew Jennings, Lizzie’s lawyer, was interviewed but said only that he “didn’t believe the story.” Whatever the truth of the matter, whether the store realized that Lizzie had indeed purchased the porcelains, and they had neglected proper recordkeeping, or there was some misunderstanding in which she thought they put them on her account but failed to do so, the complaint was withdrawn and the incident resolved. The story then disappeared from the papers without explanation.

No story like that ever appeared again, but that particular bit of damage to Lizzie’s reputation was done, and from then on, rumors emerged that not only was Lizzie a shoplifter in 1897, but that she had always been a shoplifter. Furthermore, it was said that her father, Andrew, had always known it as well and had covered for her for years in Fall River by quietly paying for the stolen items. Of course, there had never been news of Lizzie shoplifting before that incident, not even during the long months when Lizzie was awaiting trial and all manner of terrible things were reported. So she was all at once transformed into a lifelong kleptomaniac, and this became a new addition to the Lizzie Borden mythology. However, as the Fall River Historical Society has noted, no evidence has ever surfaced to indicate such claims were true.

A Cruel Turn

Relentless harassment of Lizzie in the press helped create a permission structure for relentless bedevilment in person. If certain neighborhood children saw Lizzie outside, they were likely to call her vile names or chant the “Lizzie Borden Took an Axe” rhyme, knowing she could hear it. Lizzie and Emma often had to call the police to report that neighborhood children were flinging things at the house, such as eggs or gravel against the windows. Children would dare each other to ring the doorbell late at night, sticking a pin in the button so the bell would keep repeating, then run away.

Even those who didn’t want to taunt her at least wanted to get a look at her. A neighbor boy, Russell Lake, described how he had watched “hackers” hang out at the train depot and call out to passengers, offering rides to see Lizzie Borden’s house. The hack driver would then carry his paying customers up to French Street so they could gawk, while the hacker gave them a spiel about Lizzie and the Borden murders. Young Russell, who very much liked his neighbor, the kind Miss Borden, reported feeling quite sorry for her.

It would not be surprising if Lizzie felt sorry for herself. Nor would it be surprising if she reached a point at which trying to live a quiet and unobtrusive life that would win the respect of the city became an absurd proposition. So why not start doing exactly what she wanted?

It appears that is the path Lizzie finally set herself on: doing what she wanted, without caring what anyone else thought. But that was clearly not the path Emma wanted, and it was a path that would set the Borden sisters at dire odds. For more on the life-changing events that culminated in a 1905 break between Lizzie and Emma, see Estrangement.