Lizzie Andrew Borden was the media sensation of 1892–1893, accused of murdering her father and stepmother. She was born on July 19, 1860, in Fall River, a small industrial city located in southeastern Massachusetts. Her story has become part of American folklore, perhaps most memorably through the popular rhyme: “Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother forty whacks, and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.” Although more than a century has passed, the identity of the murder culprit remains unknown, in spite of thorough research. Lizzie’s memory still remains shrouded in mystery due to contradictory views about her guilt, which makes her a legendary figure in the history of unsolved murders in the United States.
Accused of perhaps the most infamous axe murder in American history, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of slaughtering her own parents in a sensational trial in 1893. The incident has given rise to numerous books and movies, a ballet, an opera, and unforgettable school-yard doggerel about how Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother forty whacks. … (Chaiba Media)
Lizzie’s father, Andrew Jackson Borden (1822–1892), was a wealthy businessman with numerous building and real estate interests. A frugal man, he led a relatively simple lifestyle, given his wealth. He married seamstress Sarah Anthony Morse (1823–1863) in 1845, and the couple had three children: Emma Lenora (1851–1927), Alice Esther (1856–1858) and Lizzie Andrew (1860–1927). In 1865 after Sarah’s death due to uterine congestion, Mr. Borden married Abby Durfee Gray (1828–1892). Five-year-old Lizzie lived with her elder sister, father, and stepmother in a house on Second Street in Fall River, and both sisters were educated at the local high school. Lizzie was spiritually minded and became active in their Congregationalist church; later she taught Sunday school and joined the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Folklore suggests that Lizzie and her older sister might not have been happy with their father’s second marriage.
In May 1887, Mr. Borden purchased a half-share of a house at 45 Fourth Street and gave it to his new wife’s half-sister, Sarah Bertha Gray Whitehead, which became a matter of discord between Mr. Borden and his daughters. He tried to appease Lizzie and Emma, and in October he gave them the old Borden home on Ferry Street, to assuage their feelings. Nevertheless, Lizzie and Emma always greeted their stepmother as “Mrs. Borden,” and were perturbed about her family gaining a share of their father’s property.
Lizzie became secretary of the Fruit and Flower Mission in 1890, and in the same year undertook a nineteen-week trip to Europe from June to November. She was becoming an important member in the Fall River community, as evidenced from her appointment as a board member of Good Samaritan Hospital in June 1891. Her image as a young lady from a wealthy and respectable family in a small town was, according to all reports, unblemished.
At home, family relations between Lizzie, Emma, and their father were deteriorating. Mr. Borden was in the midst of yet another property transfer in his wife’s name. The sisters did not join family dinners, and there was often a disappearance of valuables from the house, with Lizzie as the prime suspect. She used very impolite language to describe her stepmother, commenting to her cloak maker Hannah H. Gifford that she was “a mean old thing. … I don’t have much to do with her.” Mr. and Mrs. Borden locked their doors with newly purchased massive locks, and Lizzie did the same thing. A climate of suspicion prevailed in the house. Lizzie reportedly went to a pharmacy to purchase prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide), but could not do so without a doctor’s prescription. On August 3, 1892, Mr. and Mrs. Borden, along with Lizzie, became ill, and Mr. Borden suspected that they had all been poisoned. In the evening, Lizzie visited her friend Alice Russell and expressed her apprehension that something ominous was going to happen in her house.
On the fateful day of August 4, between 9:00 and 11:15 a.m., both Andrew and Abby were brutally hacked to death by an axe. Lizzie called the maid Bridget Sullivan (1866–1948), yelling that her father was dead. Lizzie had no blood on her body or apparel, and explained that she had been in the barn behind the house. During the inquest, the police were not at all satisfied with Lizzie’s pleadings of innocence. Three days after the murder, she again tried to buy poison, and later burned a blue cotton dress. Lizzie was arrested on the charge of double homicide; she had been in the right place at the right time during the murder, and there was no evidence of outside entry. She was incarcerated in Taunton, Massachusetts, for ten months as the prosecution built up their case against her.
The trial of Lizzie Borden began on June 5, 1893, in New Bedford before the Superior Court for the County of Bristol, Massachusetts, with much hype in the newspapers. She was defended by former Massachusetts governor George Robinson, family attorney Andrew Jackson Jennings, and Boston attorney Melvin O. Adams. The prosecution was comprised of the district attorney for the Southern District, Hosea M. Knowlton, and the district attorney for Essex County, William H. Moody. Three Supreme Court judges presided over the case: Chief Justice Albert Mason, Associate Justice Caleb Blodgett, and Associate Justice Justin Dewey. The jury of twelve men consisted of mostly Republicans, and Charles I. Richards was the foreman of the jury. Lizzie would give several interviews claiming her innocence.
The country was split in two when it came to Lizzie Borden’s guilt. She was vilified by many as a ruthless killer, but her supporters claimed she was wrongly charged, and that it would be a travesty of justice if she were convicted. Jennings’s handwritten notes, discovered in March 2012 by the Fall River Historical Society, mentioned that Lizzie was a caring and sensitive person, and not “evil incarnate,” as portrayed by legends and rhymes. The performance of the defense far surpassed the haphazard presentation by the prosecution, as physical evidence linking Lizzie to the murders was entirely absent; there was only circumstantial evidence against her. The science of fingerprinting was not developed at this time, and therefore could not be part of the prosecution’s evidence. Her lawyers expressed the opinion that Lizzie, a devout Christian and notable figure of the Fall River community who conformed to the ideals of 1890s conventions of womanhood, was simply incapable of perpetrating such a heinous crime. On June 19, 1893, the jury took an hour and a half to decide the verdict, and the foreman ultimately proclaimed the decision: “Not guilty.”
The “trial of the century” that had caught the imagination of the American people was finally over. Mr. Borden died without a will, and his property, allegedly worth from $300,000 to $500,000, went to his two daughters. They purchased a new hilltop house on French Street, naming it Maplecroft, but a shoplifting charge against Lizzie in 1897 tarnished her image. By that point, she had changed her name to Lizbeth. She was ostracized by the community of Fall River after the criminal charge, and the relationship between the two sisters fell apart around 1905. Emma moved to Providence, Rhode Island, perhaps disliking Lizzie’s visiting artist friends, and died on June 10, 1927, in Newmarket, New Hampshire. Lizzie lived in Maplecroft until dying from pneumonia on June 1, 1927. She was buried in Fall River’s Oak Grove Cemetery next to her father, mother, and stepmother. Lizzie had bequeathed $30,000 in cash to the Animal Rescue League and $500 in trust for maintaining her father’s grave.
Villisca Axe Murders
Although the Borden case is the most well-known axe murder in American history, horrific crimes of this type have occurred throughout the United States and have long been a staple of tabloid journalism and horror movies. The “Villisca Axe Murders,” among the most grisly and high-profile mysteries in the history of Iowa, offer a case in point. On June 10, 1912, six children and two adults were discovered butchered in a quiet house; the murders remain unsolved. The scene of this bloody crime now plays host to ghost tourism, TV shows reference it, and it is the subject of documentaries and a 2015 horror film. Perhaps because this unsolved case took place in a nondescript house seemingly drawn from the pages of Our Town in what one might take to be the least remarkable location in the country, this case has long captured the popular imagination.
C. Fee
The Borden murders have continued to fascinate the American public for more than a century. A number of books, films, plays, and TV shows tend to mix fact with fiction; Sharon Pollock, a Canadian drama writer, wrote a play called Blood Relations, implying Lizzie’s involvement in the murder. In 1965, an opera called Lizzie Borden was produced, with its plot centering on the murder trial. Choreographer Agnes de Mille also produced a ballet about the trial. The Chad Mitchell Trio produced a song about Lizzie. In 1975, a movie shown on TV depicted the life of Lizzie, who was played by Elizabeth Montgomery, and in 2007 New York actress Jill Dalton opened the show Lizzie Borden Live. The Lizzie Borden house has also become a tourist attraction. Since 1992, visitors have been able to stay at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, as well as to explore the house and surrounding property.
It is believed that the “whack” rhyme, written anonymously, was composed for selling newspapers, although the number of blows was wrongly mentioned: Mr. Borden received eleven and Mrs. Borden eighteen. Still, there are many questions about Lizzie Borden’s guilt or innocence that remain unanswered. If guilty, she may have been one of the bloodiest murderers in American history, but if innocent, her reputation was unfairly sullied by a mudslinging press.
Patit Paban Mishra
See also Legends; Women in Folklore
Further Reading
Asher, Robert, et al. 2005. Murder on Trial: 1620–2002. New York: State University of New York Press.
Brown, Arnold R. 1991. Lizzie Borden: The Legend, the Truth, the Final Chapter. Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press.
Chaney, Karen Elizabeth. 2006. Lizzie Borden. Beverly, MA: Commonwealth Editions.
Hoffman, Paul Dennis. 2000. Yesterday in Old Fall River: A Lizzie Borden Companion. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
Kent, David. 1992. Forty Whacks: New Evidence in the Life and Legend of Lizzie Borden. Yankee Books.
Lincoln, Victoria. 1968. A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight. London: Gollancz.
Martins, Michael, and Dennis Binette. 2011. Parallel Lives: A Social History of Lizzie A. Borden and Her Fall River. Fall River: Fall River Historical Society.
Masterton, William L. 2000. Lizzie Didn’t Do It! Boston: Branden.
Rehak, David. 2005. Did Lizzie Borden Axe for It? Wilmington, OH: Just My Best.