Читать книгу Lizzie Didn't Do It! - William Psy.D. Masterton - Страница 8

In this chapter, we will look at the principal characters in the Borden murders: Andrew Jackson Borden (aged 69), Abby Gray Borden (64), Lizzie Andrew Borden (32), John Vinnicum Morse (59), Emma Lenora Borden (41) and Bridget Sullivan (25?). Their lives prior to August 4, 1892, and their personalities may help us understand what happened that day. We'll also look at the place where the murders occurred, 92 Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts.

The Victims: Andrew and Abby Borden

In 1892 Borden was a common name in Fall River, shared by about 400 people. There were at least four Andrew Bordens and two Andrew J. Bordens (the other one was a janitor). The family played a major role in the development of Fall River; distant relatives of "our" Andrew were instrumental in founding the cotton mills that became the city's largest industry.

Abraham Borden, Andrew's father, was a fish peddler who cried his wares from a pushcart in the streets. Andrew, growing up in impoverished circumstances in a shabby house on Ferry Street, vowed never to be poor again. In that respect he succeeded spectacularly, leaving an estate of $350,000, equivalent to perhaps five million dollars today.

Andrew Borden spent more than thirty years as an undertaker, where he prospered handsomely. Perhaps it was his money-back guarantee that attracted so many customers. Andrew promised that his caskets would preserve the remains of a loved one longer than those of his competitors. There is no record of anyone asking for his money back.

In 1878 Andrew retired from the undertaking business to pursue other financial interests. He became a stockholder in just about every profitable bank and cotton mill in Fall River. At the time of his death, he was president of the Union Savings Bank and a director of a host of institutions, including the First National Bank of Fall River, the B. M. C. Durfee Safe Deposit Trust Co., Globe Yarn Mills, Troy Cotton and Woolen Manufacturing and the Merchants Manufacturing Company. Most of his energy was devoted to protecting the interests of these institutions and others in which he had a financial interest.

Andrew Borden had extensive holdings in real estate. His proudest possession was a three story commercial structure in downtown Fall River, built in 1890, which he modestly named the A. J. Borden building. Fifty years after his death it would be a major stop for every tourist bus that came to Fall River. Beyond that, Andrew owned several tenements. Reportedly he adjusted the rent to the financial status of the tenant, but only in one direction. Anyone who received a promotion or salary increase could look forward to having his rent raised.

Through foreclosures, Andrew picked up two farms in nearby Swansea. To make them more profitable, he sold farm produce on the streets of Fall River and even at 92 Second Street. Charles Sawyer, the man pressed into service as a guard on August 4, said he was familiar with the house because he had gone there to buy "vinegar and other stuff" from Andrew.

To state the obvious, Andrew Borden was obsessed with the acquisition and retention of money. The idea that spending money could be more enjoyable than making it never occurred to him. As a Fall River Globe article pointed out:

"He rarely, if ever, visited places of amusement; Providence and Boston were the limits of his traveling experience. He dressed poorly and, for a man of his means, shabbily . . . In his own peculiar way he undoubtedly derived much pleasure from [money]. His wealth was his theater, excursions and all kinds of amusements, embodied in the one thing. It was his pleasure to add to it, to scrape together, multiply, and see his great mass doubling and redoubling."

Andrew Borden's miserly ways made him many enemies. Among them was Hiram Harrington, married to Andrew's sister Lurana., who told the following story:

"Mr. Borden was an exceedingly hard man concerning money matters, determined and stubborn; when he got an idea nothing could change him. He was too hard for me. When his father died, he offered my wife the old homestead on Ferry Street for a certain sum of money. My wife preferred to take money from Andrew instead. After all the agreements were signed, he wanted my wife to pay an additional $3 for water tax upon the homestead."

Small wonder that three different authors, all of them Fall River natives, said that the predominant reaction in Fall River to Andrew Borden's death was, "Well, somebody did a good job!"

Figure 2.1 Andrew Borden

Andrew's first wife was Sarah Morse Borden, mother of Emma, Alice (who died at age 1) and Lizzie Borden. She was also the sister of John Morse. Sarah died of "uterine congestion" when Emma was twelve and Lizzie only two. Two years later, Andrew married Abby Durfee Gray, a thirty seven year old spinster. Andrew's second marriage was almost certainly one of convenience rather than love; he needed someone to raise his children. When Lizzie was asked under oath whether Andrew and Abby were happily married, she hesitated before answering, "Why I don't know but what they were."

Figure 2.2 Emma Borden and mother, Sarah

An early photograph of Abby Borden suggests that she was an attractive young woman. By 1892 she weighed over 200 pounds and her charms had faded; living with Andrew had taken its toll. However, she had something in common with Sara Lee confectioneries. "Nobody didn't like" Abby Borden (except perhaps her stepdaughters; more about that later). A friend of Lizzie referred to Abby as "a kindhearted lovable woman who tried, but ineffectively, to win the love of her stepdaughters." Mrs. Southard Miller, who lived across the street, described Mrs. Borden as, "the best and most intimate neighbor I ever met." Bridget Sullivan said that when she considered going back to Ireland, Mrs. Borden said she would be lonely without her. "I didn't have the heart to leave her," Bridget added.

FIGURE 2.3 Abby Borden

The reaction to Abby's death differed considerably from Andrew's. Several people, including Joseph Lemay's weirdo (Chapter 1), referred to, "poor Mrs. Borden." No one mentioned, "poor Mr. Borden" which would have been the ultimate oxymoron. The same Fall River Globe article which took a dim view of Andrew had this to say about Abby Borden:

"She had a kindly disposition . . . and was a model helpmate for her somewhat eccentric husband. She was opposed to pretentious appearances and dressed neatly and plainly; neither was she fond of amusement but rather preferred the surroundings of her home . . . Her memory will be cherished."

From the autopsy results, it appeared that Andrew and Abby Borden had been in excellent health. They did, however, have a severe gastrointestinal upset on Tuesday night before the murders. The next morning Abby went across the street to consult with Dr. Bowen. She told him that she and Andrew had vomited several times between 9 P.M. and midnight. Lizzie was less affected, Bridget apparently not at all.

Abby expressed to Dr. Bowen her fear that they had been poisoned, perhaps by some baker's bread they had eaten for supper. Bowen doubted that but advised a stiff dose of castor oil to be washed down with a little port wine. Later he decided that the neighborly thing to do was to go across to 92 Second Street and see how the Bordens were doing. Andrew greeted him with a warning that he didn't intend to pay for an unrequested house call. Same old Andrew, always looking for ulterior motives. Just for the record, Dr. Wood found later that the stomachs of the victims did not contain poison.

The Accused: Lizzie Borden

We really know very little about Lizzie's life prior to the murders. She was one month shy of being five years old when her father married Abby Gray. She had no recollection of her own mother, Sarah Morse Borden. As a child, Lizzie called Abby "mother"; later that changed. Lizzie said once, "I had never been to her as a mother in many things. I always went to my sister because she was older and had the care of me after my mother died."

Lizzie was an indifferent student, about average in intellectual ability. Teachers remembered her as a lonely girl with few friends at school. She dropped out of high school in her junior year, apparently for lack of interest. Lizzie gave her high school ring to her father; Andrew wore it on his little finger for the rest of his life.

In 1890 she crossed the Atlantic to tour Europe. No one knows what countries she visited or what impressions she brought back to Fall River. It has been suggested that Lizzie's trip abroad made her realize how dreary life was at home; that would be understandable.

About five years before the murders, Lizzie became active in the Central Congregational Church. She was the only member of her family to be involved in church work; in August 1892 she was secretary-treasurer of Christian Endeavor. As a member of the Fruit and Flower Mission, she visited the sick, the poor and the shut-ins. For several years she taught a mission class of Chinese men; later she worked with a group of young girls employed in the cotton mills.

For a woman, Lizzie was about average in height (5'4") and weight (135 lb). A photograph taken in the early 1890s suggests that she was attractive. No one ever called her beautiful, perhaps because of a certain "heaviness" in her lower face. Many said that Lizzie's best feature was her hair; the phrases used to describe it ranged from "mousy brown" to "auburn tinged". There was disagreement about her eyes as well:

"She had dreadful eyes, colorless and soulless like those of a snake" "Her large, light eyes were by far her most attractive feature"

"The eyes themselves were huge and protruding, the irises ice-blue" "She had large brown eyes"

FIGURE 2.4 Lizzie Borden, circa 1892

What kind of a person was Lizzie Borden? That depends upon whom you listen to, the Lizzie lovers or the Lizzie haters. There are, however, some areas of agreement; we'll concentrate on those.

Lizzie resembled her father in many ways. She was stubborn, assertive in maintaining her rights, and forthright in expressing her opinions. She was a stoical person who never (well, almost never) showed emotion in public. This was the quality that got Lizzie into trouble with Officers Fleet and Harrington and, through them, with the head of the Fall River police force, Marshal Hilliard. Her friends said that her calm demeanor after discovering her father's body was predictable; she always suppressed her emotions. Perhaps Lizzie herself said it best: "There is one thing that hurts me very much. They say I don't show any grief. Certainly I don't in public. I never did reveal my feelings and I cannot change my nature now."

In their attitudes toward money, Lizzie and Andrew were at opposite poles. Lizzie enjoyed spending money and did so every time she got a chance. While touring Europe she ran out of money; Andrew, much as it pained him, had to send her more. Her wardrobe was both expensive and extensive. Officers Fleet and Seaver examined the dresses in the Borden sisters' clothes closet, about eighteen in number; of these, one belonged to Abby, a few to Emma and the rest to Lizzie. Most of Lizzie's dresses were blue, her favorite color.

There was another side to Lizzie's willingness to spend money. With less than one tenth of Andrew's income, she gave at least ten times as much to charity. When the mother of one of her former teachers needed a major operation and couldn't pay for it, Lizzie assumed all of the expenses. Somehow she paid the doctor and hospital bills out of her savings. Throughout her life, Lizzie did many, many kindnesses of this sort.

Lizzie was extraordinarily sensitive to rebuff or disapproval. Victoria Lincoln, a Fall River native, explained this by saying, "Her need to be loved outstripped her ability to love." Her uncle, Hiram Harrington, put it more critically. "Lizzie is of a repellant disposition and after an unsuccessful passage with her father would become sulky and refuse to speak to him for days at a time."

Again, let's give Lizzie the last word:

"One thing that hurts is the malignity that is directed against me. I have done much good to people who now desert me. In my own home there are hands stretched out against me that I have loaded with favors in the past. There is no one so humble that does not dare to condemn me."

An insight into the differing views of Lizzie's character comes from two stories. One appears in the book, Lizzie Borden, the Untold Story by Edward Radin, who was convinced of Lizzie's innocence. It seems that there was a group of boys in the neighborhood who lusted for the pears growing in the Borden backyard. One of them went to the door and, when Lizzie answered, asked if he and his friends could pick a few pears.

"She told me we could pick the fruit that had fallen to the ground but we must not climb the trees. We soon found a way to beat that. We would sneak into the yard and shake a big pile of pears off the trees. I'll never forget the first time we did it. Lizzie gave a start when she saw that mound of pears on the ground. She caught on immediately. Her eyes danced, her lips quirked up, and you could see she wanted to laugh out loud. After that, it became a game. I know she watched us through the window shaking the trees first, but she never spoiled the game for us by telling us outright that she knew. It made the pears taste even better and she must have realized it."

Agnes de Mille, who choreographed the ballet Fall River Tragedy and believed Lizzie to be guilty, told a quite different story.

"A workman once witnessed a curious scene in connection with the laying of some bricks. Miss Borden returned from shopping to find them cemented contrary to her instructions. She wheeled on the laborer and without a moment's warning flew into such a white fury that she seemed almost out of her mind. Her language and the violence of her physical demeanor were horrifying. The workman left and refused to return."

On the evening before the murders, Lizzie had a long and lugubrious conversation with Alice Russell. She described her parents' illness and Abby's fears, which Lizzie apparently shared, that they had been poisoned. She told of Dr. Bowen's visit and the rude reception Andrew gave him. As Lizzie put it, "I was so mortified." Lizzie went on to tell Alice about the trouble her father had with a man who came to the house to rent a store from Andrew. Her father turned him down, at which point they argued angrily. Finally, Andrew loudly ordered the man out of the house.

Throughout their conversation, Alice tried to persuade Lizzie that she was "making a mountain out of a molehill". However, Lizzie persisted, telling Alice that, "They have broken into the house in broad daylight, with Emma, Maggie and me there. Mrs. Borden's things were ransacked and they [broke into father's desk and] took a watch, money and streetcar tickets. Father reported it to the police but they didn't find anything." (The robbery occurred in June of 1891; Andrew told the police he was afraid they would not be able to find the real thief.)

Lizzie summarized her foreboding by saying, "I am afraid somebody will do something." Indeed within twenty four hours someone did do something awful. Perhaps Lizzie had a premonition; then again, perhaps her prophecy was self-fulfilled.

Significant Others: John, Emma and Bridget

John Vinnicum Morse, a bachelor, was the brother of Andrew's first wife. Born in Somerset, a town bordering Fall River, he migrated to the midwest at age twenty two. There he accumulated a tiny fortune raising cattle and horses, first in Illinois and later in Hastings, Iowa. Two years before the murders, he came back to New England. In August of 1892 he was living in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts with a butcher named Isaac Davis. He made frequent visits to the Borden house fifteen miles away, showing up in late June and again in mid July of 1892.

On Wednesday, August 3, after shaving his friend Davis (who was blind), Morse came to Fall River, arriving at the Borden house shortly after noon. The senior Bordens, who had just finished dinner, greeted him heartily. Abby invited him to sit down and eat, saying, "Everything is hot on the stove. It won't cost us a mite of trouble."

Later that afternoon, Morse rented a team of horses and drove to Andrew's farms in Swansea. There he arranged to take delivery of some cattle that Isaac Davis had bought from Andrew. Shortly before 9 P.M., Morse arrived back at 92 Second Street, carrying a basket of eggs that Andrew had requested. The two men talked in the darkness for about an hour and then went their separate ways to bed. Curiously, Lizzie didn't say hello to her uncle when she came back from Alice Russell's; indeed she didn't even see him on this visit until after the murders.

John Morse was six feet tall and weighed about two hundred pounds. According to the Fall River Globe, "His full beard of iron grey partially concealed a well tanned face, which is enlivened by two small, restless grey eyes, deeply set behind shaggy eyebrows. His appearance certainly is not inviting or prepossessing, and his mannerisms and habits are peculiar." (The Globe didn't much like any of the Borden family except Abby.)

FIGURE 2.5 John Morse

Clearly John Morse was a frugal, taciturn Yankee who did not make friends readily. Beyond that, opinions differed. Isaac Davis spoke up for him, saying, "No, sir, John V. Morse never committed that crime. Why, I would have trusted him with everything in the world and would as soon think of my own son doing the deed." Morse's Iowa neighbors were less complimentary. One person described him as, "selfish, close, hardfisted, but scrupulously honest." Another was sure that the suit Morse was wearing on the morning of murders was the same one in which he left Iowa two years before. No wonder Andrew Borden and John Morse got along so well; they were "cut out of the same cloth".

Emma Borden, by general consensus, was a pale mirror image of her younger sister Lizzie. Emma was "plain" in appearance; Lizzie was "attractive". Emma had a weak jaw, Lizzie a strong one. The Fall River Globe was particularly cruel, referring to Emma's, "listless, expressionless face, indicating a person who is accustomed to obey the persuasion of a stronger mind." A reporter for the Boston Globe must have really hurt poor Emma when he said, "Lizzie looks six years younger than she is, Emma six years older." No wonder Emma seldom if ever posed for a portrait.

The contrast between Lizzie and Emma carried over to their personalities. Lizzie was "aggressive", Emma "submissive". Lizzie had a sense of humor; Emma never laughed (perhaps because she had very little to laugh about). Unlike Lizzie, Emma seldom strayed very far from 92 Second Street. Her two week visit to friends in Fairhaven, cut short by the murders, was highly unusual.

From Lizzie Borden Sourcebook p. 38

There is evidence, though, that Emma was not as meek and mild as legend has it. Lizzie referred to her stepmother first as "mother" and later as "Mrs. Borden". Emma called her "Abby" from day one, even though she was only a teenager when her father remarried. Perhaps Emma's disdain for Abby came from her own mother, Sarah Borden, who was brought up by a stepmother she intensely disliked.

Bridget Sullivan emigrated from Ireland in May of 1886. She worked in Newport, Rhode Island and South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, before settling down in Fall River. In November of 1889 she went to work as a maid for the Bordens. She gave her age as twenty five at the time of the murders, but recent studies indicate she was born in March of 1864, which would make her twenty eight in August, 1892.

Regardless of how old she was, there is general agreement that Bridget Sullivan was a very good looking young woman. Newspaper sketches of Bridget suggest that she may have been a tad overweight by today's standards, but never mind. Joe Howard, a well-known reporter who covered the Borden case, said she was, "tall and spare, with an intelligent face, a good eye, a prominent nose, and a mouth indicating a love for the good things of life." The Fall River Globe was practically ecstatic about Bridget. After calling her "comely", the paper went on to say that she, "has a handsome complexion and always dresses neatly and tastily. In fact she appears to be the bestdressed member of the whole Borden family." Lizzie must have been infuriated by that comment.

FIGURE 2.6 Bridget (Maggie) Sullivan

To describe Bridget's personality, the word "excitable" comes to mind. Certainly she showed more emotion than Lizzie on the day of the murders. Charles Sawyer, the guard at the door, put it well. "The servant girl appeared to be somewhat frightened. I thought she acted as though she was considerably excited, although she talked intelligently." That night, Bridget refused to stay in the Borden house, even though all the doors were locked and police were standing guard outside. A few days later, when a policeman asked her what she thought about the murders, Bridget replied, "I'd be afraid to say anything at all. If I did, that terrible man that killed poor Mrs. Borden might come back and kill me too."

One of Bridget's duties at the Borden house was cooking. The meals she cooked shortly before the murders are listed below. (Several of the menus must be incomplete; otherwise the whole family would have suffered from malnutrition.) Notice the preponderance of mutton, served three times in a row.

LE MENU, CHEZ BORDEN, AUGUST 1892

	BREAKFAST	DINNER	SUPPER
Tuesday Aug 2	?	Swordfish (fried)	Swordfish (warmed) baker’s bread, tea, milk cookies, cake
Wednesday Aug 3	Pork steak Johnny cakes (1) Pears, coffee Milk	Mutton stew (2)	Mutton stew (warmed) bread, milk, cookies, cake
Thursday Aug 4	Mutton (cold) Mutton stew (warmed) Johnny cakes Bananas, coffee, milk	Mutton, warmed (3) Mutton stew

(1) A small, inedible pancake made by frying corn meal

(2) John Morse thought it tasted like veal

(3) Warmed mutton was what Bridget Sullivan would have cooked for dinner if . . .

The final breakfast is a famous one. It has been said, not entirely in jest, that it must have been the catalyst if not the cause of the murders. Keep in mind, though, that hearty breakfasts such as this one were much more common in the "good old days" than they are today. Growing up in rural New Hampshire in the 1930s, I can remember eating warmed over steak for breakfast (it tasted a lot better than mutton).

House of Horror

The photograph below shows the Borden property at 92 Second Street as it looked a few months after the murders. The narrow 22 story house faces Second Street; the back of the property abuts houses on Third Street. The ornate picket fence at the front had two gates. The one shown at the right led directly to the front door; the other gate led to a side entrance located towards the back of the house. There was also an entrance in the rear (not shown) which opened into the cellar. It's not obvious from the photograph, but the entire property was enclosed by wooden fences which separated the Bordens from their neighbors.

FIGURE 2.7 Front view of Borden house, circa 1892

Behind the house you can see the two story barn, where Liz-zie said she was when Andrew was murdered. Until a year or two before the murders,Andrew Borden kept a horse; in August of 1892 the barn served no useful purpose except as a storage area for articles no longer used but too valuable to throw away. To the right of the barn were several pear trees, which have been mentioned a couple of times already. Apparently everyone in the household except Bridget liked, or at least ate, pears.

The Borden house was built in 1845 as a two-family tenement. The first and second floors were virtually identical at that time; each contained a kitchen, two medium sized rooms and two small rooms. When Andrew Borden bought the house in 1872, he converted the upstairs kitchen to a master bedroom. Downstairs, a partition between the two small rooms was removed to make a dining room. The resulting layouts of the two floors are shown in the diagram below.

The downstairs parlor was almost never used. Had President Harrison come to visit, he would probably have been entertained there, but ordinary guests like John Morse made themselves comfortable in the sitting room. That was where Andrew and John talked in the darkness on the night of Wednesday, August 3. It was also where Andrew Borden was murdered on Thursday and where the funeral was held on Saturday.

The kitchen was where the "survivors" (Lizzie, Bridget, Adelaide Churchill, Alice Russell and Dr. Bowen) gathered after Andrew's body was discovered. Notice that in order to get from the kitchen to the front stairs, you had to pass through the sitting room. Perhaps that was why Bridget refused to go alone to look for Abby in the upstairs guest room; she had to pass by Andrew's body on the sitting room sofa.

FIGURE 2.8 Layout of the Borden house

From Goodye, Lizzie Borden, pp. 14, 15

The second floor was effectively divided into two compartments. The two rooms toward the back (master bedroom, dressing room) were accessible only from the back staircase; the door to Lizzie's room was blocked by a heavy bureau. The three rooms at the front, facing Second Street (Lizzie's room, Emma's room, and the guest room) could be reached only from the front staircase. Notice that Emma's room was considerably smaller than Lizzie's. When the Bordens moved into the house, Emma, as the older sister, got the larger room. When Lizzie came back from Europe they switched. According to Emma, that was her own idea; maybe so, maybe not.

The back staircase went all the way from the cellar to the attic, where Bridget's room was located. Notice that she was far removed from the sitting room; given that and the street noise, it's hardly surprising that Bridget was unaware of Andrew's murder when it occurred.

The Borden house in 1892 had only one modern convenience, central heating furnished by a coal furnace. When city water became available in 1874, Andrew installed two cold water taps, one in the first floor sink room, the other in the laundry room in the cellar. Later he added a third faucet in the barn so he could water his horse. For all this, Andrew paid the city of Fall River $10 a year.

There was no convenient source of hot water in the Borden house. If you wanted to take a bath, you could start a fire under a large cast iron cauldron in the cellar; a couple of hours later you'd have ten gallons or more of hot water. Alternatively, you could heat smaller quantities of water to boiling on the kitchen stove, which burned wood or coal. (No wonder most people only bathed once a week a hundred years ago.)

There was only one toilet in the house, euphemistically called a "water closet"; it was located in the cellar. There was no water above the ground floor. Each bedroom was equipped with a receptacle called a chamber pot for nocturnal liquid waste. Andrew called his a "slop pail" and emptied it each morning in the back yard. The ladies of the household were more circumspect; they emptied their chamber pots in the water closet.

At the time of the murders, illuminating gas had been available in Fall River for several years; electric lights were just coming in. The Bordens had neither; Andrew was satisfied with kerosene lamps, which he used sparingly. Certainly, for a person of his means, the house was fitted out in a primitive way. Lizzie complained about this to her father, loudly and frequently, but to no avail.

Surprisingly, the Borden house has survived, almost unchanged structurally. The present owner, Martha McGinn, has restored the Victorian motif of a century ago and opened a bed and breakfast (telephone: 508 675 7333); tours are also available. Before staying there overnight, I checked on the number of toilets and the supply of hot water; both are more than adequate. The breakfast does not feature mutton of any kind. Otherwise it's pretty much as John Morse described it on that fateful morning in 1892; "plenty of it."

The Neighborhood

The surroundings of the Borden house are shown in the sketch below. Adelaide Churchill, the forty two year old widow who came over to console Lizzie on the morning of the murders, was her next door neighbor to the north. The two houses were only twenty feet apart but, because of the gate and fence arrangement, Mrs. Churchill had to walk considerably further to get from her front door to the side entrance of the Borden house. Dr. Kelly and his wife lived directly south of the Bordens; their house was somewhat more distant than Mrs. Churchill's.

Dr. Bowen, the family physician (age 52) lived across Second Street with his wife, Phoebe. They shared the house with Phoebe's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Southard Miller, perhaps the closest friends of Andrew and Abby Borden. The Crowe property contained a series of sheds and barns. John Crowe was a stone mason dealing in granite and marble. Several of his employees were working in the yard on the morning of the murders.

A map of Fall River where the action took place is shown below. Dwelling houses or places of business are numbered. Alice Russell lived about 200 yards northeast of the Borden house, on Borden Street. It should have taken her only a few minutes to respond to Bridget's call. Sarah Whitehead, Abby Borden's half-sister who was much younger than Abby, lived at 45 Fourth Street, a short distance southeast of the Borden home. She had two small children, George and Abby.

The A. J. Borden building, the Union Savings Bank of which Andrew Borden was president, and several other major banks were all within easy walking distance of the Borden house. Perhaps that explains why Andrew Borden chose to live in this part of Fall River.

FIGURE 2.10 Fall River in 1892

Beyond the range of this map is the house on Weybosset Street where John Morse visited his niece on the morning of the murders. It was a little more than a mile southeast of the Borden house. Also off the map is the Oak Grove Cemetery, where the Bordens are buried, about a mile northeast of where they lived.

The district known as "the Highlands" or, more commonly "the Hill" consisted of many elegant houses overlooking the Taunton River. It was centered about half-mile north of the Borden house. Included in this area, on Rock Street, is the Central Congregational Church which Lizzie attended.