Emma Borden Biography

It is well known that a warm and supportive relationship between Abby and her stepdaughters never developed, as Andrew certainly must have hoped. Many have speculated that Emma was the source of the distance between them. Years later, Mrs. Mary Livermore, a women’s rights advocate who had known Lizzie and Emma’s mother, Sarah, commented on the family situation to the Fall River Herald. “Emma never ceased to regard Abby Borden as in some sense a usurper in the household in which at least one member cherished with jealous regard the sweet memories of a sanctified mother.”

This insight is one reason why the authors of Parallel Lives could say that Abby’s entrance into the family created a “harsh reality.” Emma, may have been “supplanted physically as the mother figure in the household by her father’s second wife, [but would] forever hold that position emotionally for her sister, Lizzie, at the expense of Abby D. Borden.”

Emma as a Young Adult

At the age of 16, Emma went off to college at Wheaton Female Seminary, where she completed four semesters before returning home. She did not finish the full program for reasons unknown. Nor did she ever marry, also for reasons unknown; however, it was not uncommon for women in the post-Civil War era to choose not to marry, especially if they had a means of support from father or family, as Emma did.

Emma did attend church, but she did not dedicate herself to charity work as her sister Lizzie did. She seems to have put most of her energy into maintaining family ties and her friendships. She was the one, not Lizzie, who would write to the girls’ uncle, John Morse, when he was away for years in Iowa. A journal kept by the girls’ friend, Mrs. Mary Brigham, recorded many more mentions of letters from Emma than from Lizzie. Clearly, Emma was a devoted and dear friend to many, and her efforts to maintain those relationships would serve her well in later life.

Yet her dislike for Abby remained constant and perhaps grew sharper as she aged. In her late 30s, she and Lizzie learned that their father, Andrew, had bought half a share in the house that Abby grew up in and gifted it to Abby, so her half-sister, Sarah “Bertie” Whitehead, wouldn’t have to move out. Emma and Lizzie felt stung by this generosity to Abby, and Lizzie admitted to telling Abby, “What he did for your people he ought to do for his own children.” Andrew soon gave Emma and Andrew the Borden Homestead on Ferry Street once owned by his father, Abraham. While Lizzie would say that gift resolved the issue for her (doubtful), Emma was honest in court that it did not resolve hurt feelings for her. Either way, several others would testify that Lizzie had always been more friendly to Abby than she.

A few years before the murders, Lizzie returned from a trip to Europe with a trunk full of souvenirs she hoped to display. Her room, however, was quite small compared to the much larger room that Emma had always occupied. According to her testimony, Emma then offered to switch rooms with Lizzie and took the smaller room for herself. (Some read into this that Lizzie was more spoiled and demanding, but of course, it could simply be that Emma truly didn’t care about the size of her room and thought it fair to trade for a time.)

Tragedy Multiplied

Two weeks before the murders, Emma took a train to Fairhaven for a long stay at the house of her friends, the Brownell family. Mrs. Brownell was also her seamstress, which allowed Emma to have new dresses custom-made for her while she was there. (Why Emma did not use Mrs. Mary Raymond, the seamstress who sewed Lizzie and Abby’s dresses is unknown.) It was during this trip away that an assailant attacked her father and stepmother with a hatchet in their own home, while Lizzie was admittedly about the house.

At receiving a telegram sent by family physician, Dr. Seabury Bowen, that her father had died, Emma immediately took a train home and was undoubtedly shocked to learn news of the murders. There is no record of how she reacted—no one in any interview or any court proceeding ever asked her. All focus was on Lizzie, who had in the mind of police officers almost immediately become their primary suspect.

From all accounts, Emma handled these trying events with grace and dignity, continually offering to help police in whatever they needed, despite the fact they were targeting her younger sister, whom Emma never doubted was innocent. It was Emma who first contacted their father’s lawyer, Andrew Jennings, to come to Lizzie’s legal defense. It was Emma who placed an ad in the paper offering a reward for information leading to Andrew and Abby’s killer. It was Emma who agreed with Jenning’s suggestion to hire a private detective to help find the killer.

Throughout the ordeal of the inquest and Lizzie’s arrest, as well as the long months of Lizzie’s imprisonment and trial, Emma unhesitatingly stood by her sister. She visited her often and defended her to others. When she took the stand as a defense witness, she stalwartly tried to correct what she believed to be false information from the prosecution. She would not be shaken by cross-examination from the intimidating district attorney, who in his closing argument would accuse her of lying to protect her sister. (Perhaps this is why she reportedly lamented to Jennings that she didn’t think she had done her sister any good on the stand.) The jury, however, seemed to believe her, and it is possible her testimony went a long way to help render a verdict of “not guilty.”

In the end, Emma delivered on her promise to her mother to always take care of her younger sister, showing up for Lizzie even in the most dire and troubling circumstances.

After the Trial

Once Lizzie’s legal ordeal was over and she was released from custody, it did not take long for the sisters to buy a new, larger house for themselves in a nicer neighborhood that would allow them to start a new life. The city of Fall River, however, had different ideas for the murder-besmirched sisters, and lingering doubts about Lizzie’s guilt caused their new neighbors to shun them. Old friends did stick by them, although after awhile the social cost of remaining close to Lizzie would become too much for many. Yet most of Emma’s previous friends remained loyal to her, and they would give her haven when she needed to escape the pressures of living with a sister so many believed to be a murderer who got away with it.

Eventually, the strain of such a closely examined life created much friction between the sisters, who approached the problem differently. Emma seemed to believe that they should live in a way that was as unobtrusive as possible to avoid drawing attention; Lizzie seemed to become tired of trying to please people who refused to be pleased and reporters who shined attention on her no matter what she did—either repeating rumors or outright inventing them. By 1905, twelve years after Lizzie’s acquittal, Emma would characterize living with her sister as “unbearable” and move out of the house they owned together. They would remain permanently estranged; as far as we know, they never spoke to each other again.   

After leaving the shared house that Lizzie now referred to as Maplecroft, Emma did not buy a house of her own, though she could have afforded one. She preferred to stay with friends for long periods, before moving on to stay with another set of friends. She seems to have spent several years living with the five unmarried daughters of her longtime pastor and friend, Reverend Edwin Buck. She also spent considerable time with friends in Providence and occasionally took trips elsewhere. She traveled to Nova Scotia in 1911, for instance, with her friend Josephine Ridlon.

Toward the end of her life, Emma moved north to Newmarket, New Hampshire, and it was there that she eventually died of kidney disease and encroaching “senility.” Ironically, her younger sister, Lizzie, had died only nine days earlier. While the tragedy-stricken Borden girls became estranged in life, today they lie side-by-side at Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River, in the same plot as their father, their mother, their lost baby sister, Alice, and their stepmother.

A Look at Emma’s Character

While there were few stories about Emma in the press that do more than describe expressions on her face as she showed up at a court proceeding or visited her sister in jail, there was one story that appeared in the New York World, on the day of Lizzie’s arrest, that gave the public a glimpse of her personality:

“Emma Borden, having been out of the city when the murders were committed, of course could tell nothing about them, but she was closely questioned about the relations existing between her sister and herself and the old people. Miss Emma has attained that age when it is scarcely a discourtesy to call her an old maid. She is rapidly nearing forty. Lizzie is thirty-three and looks it. That Emma has a temper, too, was illustrated when she came downstairs and entered the carriage.

Marshal Hilliard did not do her the honor to ride with her, as he has always done with Lizzie, and Dr. Bowen, who had also been an occupant of the carriage on its arrival at headquarters, did not return with her. Emma had barely been seated when a policeman started to join her.

“I prefer to ride alone,” she exclaimed.

“But I was told to go with you.”

“I don’t care; you shan’t. I am not a prisoner, and I don’t propose to be treated as such. Get away from here.”

She caught the carriage door and closed it. The officer put his hand upon it, and Miss Borden pushed him away.

“You must not enter this carriage, sir. I insist upon my right, and I won’t be subjected to this outrage.”

The policeman didn’t know what to do. Miss Borden’s manner was determined and her voice was high.

A crowd began to gather, and then Marshal Hilliard told the driver to go on. Miss Borden won her point.”

For a truly in-depth look at Emma and her life, see Borden scholar Kat Koorey’s article, “Looking for Emma,” published in The Hatchet in 2006.