Family

The Borden Household in 1892

• Lizzie A. Borden — Lizzie was the quiet and reserved Sunday school teacher who was shockingly accused of murdering her father and stepmother with a hatchet when she was 32 years old. Although she was found “not guilty,” by a jury, she has since become the world’s most infamous axe murderess and an American Icon. After her trial, she lived a relatively quiet life in Fall River, dying of pneumonia in 1927 at the age of 66.  
• Andrew J. Borden — Businessman and real estate developer in Fall River. Andrew started life relatively poor, but through hard work, industrious thrift and smart investments, he amassed a fair amount of wealth, with his estimated value of his estate at his death to be $300,000 (the equivalent of $11 million in 2026 dollars). He was also the president of a bank, a member of the board of directors in two others, and a director in several mills and other companies. With this first wife, Sarah, he was the father of three daughters, Lizzie was his youngest, Emma his oldest, while the daughter born between the two died as a young child. Two years after Sarah’s death, he married again at the age of 43 to Abby Durfee Gray, a spinster he met at church. When he was a month shy of 70th birthday, both Andrew and his wife were murdered in their home on August 4th, 1892, a crime still officially unsolved.
• Abby D. Borden — The second wife of Andrew Borden (whom he married when she was 37) and stepmother to Lizzie and Emma Borden, Abby Borden never had children of her own. By all accounts, she was an “ineffectual” stepmother who did not seem to know how to win the affection of her stepdaughters. She was considered a “loyal and faithful” wife to her husband and took pride in keeping a comfortable and tidy house for him. While she did not seek to be part of the social milieu of upper-class Fall River that her husband’s wealth might have allowed, she was occasionally mentioned in the papers as having volunteered time for charitable causes, such as sewing for the poor. She enjoyed the company of a small circle of friends and was also devoted to her half-sister, Sarah “Bertie” Whitehead, visiting her and her children often. She was 64 years old at the time of her murder.
• Emma L. Borden — The firstborn child of Andrew and Sarah Borden, Emma was nine years older than her sister, Lizzie. Emma said in an interview in her later life that she gave a promise to her mother on her deathbed to always care for “Baby Lizzie,” who was still just two years old at the time. Emma made good her word, becoming a “little mother” to Lizzie, caring for her even after her father remarried. Emma attended college at Wheaton Female Seminary for several semesters but returned home without graduating. She never married. She was not known to volunteer for charity work as her sister Lizzie did, but she was a devoted and dear friend to many. She also remained devoted to her sister, standing by Lizzie and proclaiming her innocence when Lizzie was accused of the murder of their father and stepmother.
• After Lizzie was acquitted, the sisters bought a house on French Street in Fall River, where they lived together for the next 12 years. Unknown circumstances caused her to move out in 1905 and remain estranged from her sister for the rest of her life. She never bought another house of her own, despite her financial ability to do so, and spent the next years moving around, living with different friends. She eventually found her way to New Hampshire, where she died in 1927, at the age of 75, only nine days after Lizzie died. The Borden sisters are buried side-by-side at the feet of their father.  
• John Morse — Lizzie and Emma’s maternal uncle, John Morse, was the younger brother of their mother, Sarah Morse Borden. Morse had remained friends with his brother-in-law Andrew long after the death of his sister and continued to visit him whenever he was in Massachusetts. While originally from Fall River, as a young man Morse moved to Iowa and bought a farm. He called himself a farmer and horse trader, and every handful of years he would bring cattle or horses back East with him to sell and trade during his visits. Being a lifelong bachelor without children left him free to wander at will. Like Andrew, he was known for his thrift and lack of pretension, and the two men got together often when John was back East to talk about business and investments. He showed up unannounced at the Borden house the night before the murders and was invited to spend the night. He was expected back for the noon meal. Because of his presence in the house, he was originally suspected in the minds of the townsfolk, despite an airtight alibi. While he was a witness for the prosecution at trial, he continued to maintain his belief in Lizzie’s innocence for the rest of his life.  
• Bridget Sullivan “Maggie” — A 25-year-old Irish immigrant, Bridget Sullivan was not a Borden family member, but she was a member of the household, having worked as a live-in domestic servant for the Bordens for two years and nine months. She was the only other known person besides Lizzie who was in or around the house at the time of the murders. (She was outside washing windows during the presumed time window Abby was killed.) Bridget was the first person Lizzie shouted for after she found her father’s body on the sofa, telling Bridget to fetch their family doctor from across the street, then asking her to go get her friend Alice Russell to come sit with her. After answering questions all day from police, a shaken Bridget wanted nothing more than to leave the house. She left the house and returned a few times in the days that followed, but despite Emma letting her know she was welcome to stay in their employ, she chose to leave her position.
• Bridget then became a star witness for the prosecution. Her memory of events the morning of the murders became the official timeline in the case against Lizzie, and the fact that the story Lizzie told differed substantially from Bridget’s made her look guilty in the minds of police. On the stand, however, Bridget’s testimony was more helpful than not to Lizzie, because she could report no quarrels or difficulties between Lizzie and her father and stepmother. After the trial, Bridget went back to Ireland for a time, but returned to the U.S., eventually marrying a man named John Sullivan and settling in Anaconda, Montana, where she lived until her death in 1948.

Other Family Members of Note

• Hiram Harrington — Lizzie and Emma’s uncle by marriage, Harrington was married to Andrew’s younger sister, Lurana. He was so strongly disliked by Andrew (and by extension disliked by Lizzie), that he was not welcome to visit the Borden house. Although he had not spent time with either Andrew or Lizzie in years, he felt himself enough of an authority on their relationship that he gave an interview to a reporter in which he claimed father and daughter experienced much strife at Lizzie’s instigation. He came very close to accusing her of killing Andrew for his money. He did not repeat such assertions when he was under oath at the inquest. Nor did any other witness corroborate his inflammatory claims. Lizzie, however, was quick to let authorities know that as far as she knew, Hiram Harrington was her father’s only enemy. Many authors, such as Victoria Lincoln, would claim (without citing a source) that Lizzie throughout her life continued to believe that Harrington had something to do with her father’s murder.
• Sarah Whitehead “Bertie” — the half-sister of Abby Borden, it was for Bertie’s sake that Andrew bought the half-share of the house that the widowed Jane Gray, Bertie’s mother, inherited from Oliver Gray, Abby and Bertie’s father. Andrew paid Mrs. Gray for her half of the house and deeded it to Abby, so that Bertie would not have to move out when her mother did. This is the property transfer that created conflict between Emma and Lizzie and the elder Bordens. It also added to sour feelings between Bertie Whitehead and the Borden sisters. (Bertie didn’t do Lizzie any favors with her testimony at the inquest.) Bertie, and later her daughter, Abby Whitehead Potter, would go on record with reporters as saying they believed Lizzie had killed Abby. Nonetheless, Lizzie and Abby, who inherited that half-share of the house and Abby’s other property, turned it over to Bertie.