Sunday, August 4, 2013

The Borden House

Today is the anniversary of a heinous crime that rocked the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and put the city of Fall River on the map. I bet you've even heard of the event or maybe skipped rope to the rhyme:

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.

On 4. August 1892, the bodies of Andrew Borden and his (second) wife Abby were found bludgeoned in their home. Even more shocking, Andrew's 32 year old daughter, Lizzie was charged with the crime. After a 10 day trial, the jury acquitted Miss Lizzie. The murders remain unsolved.


The Lizzie Borden Museum and Bed and Breakfast  is located at  230 Second Street in Fall River with daily tours of the home. Amid period furniture and with a guide dressed in period costume (though the mood is broken when he carries around a Styrofoam cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee), you'll hear about the crime and see horrific photographs and evidence from the trial.

The bed and breakfast is immaculate, but the house creeped me out. I thought it had a funny smell to it, but Teague didn't smell anything. Perhaps a product of an over-active imagination, I didn't like being in the house and the outside looks like it's still screaming.

If you're in Fall River today, the Pear Essential Players will be dramatizing the events. Time and Ticket information here

Would you be able to spend a night in Lizzie Borden's house?

5 comments:

  1. I've heard of this, but didn't realise the daughter had been acquitted...I suppose the tale creates its own story over the years....but who did it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is strong speculation that Lizzie committed the murders. She had no real alibi, and her story seems to have a lot of holes in it.

      Delete
  2. That's one ominous looking property, I'm twitching to get some tins of bright paint on it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. It does look like it's screaming :O (I used that little rhyme as my required poem in speech class senior year. It does SO count!)

    ReplyDelete
  4. How interesting that they made it a bed and breakfast. I checked the link and they're still open, so it must be a popular spot.

    I remember the movie with Elizabeth Montgomery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Lizzie_Borden#Film

    ReplyDelete