The Bordens of Fall River 6 2. the Bordens of Second Street 23 3

© University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. CONTENTS Editors’ Preface ix Preface xi Prologue 1 1. Setting: The Bordens of Fall River 6 2. The Bordens of Second Street 23 3. The Crime Heard ’round the Country and Beyond 51 4. The Investigation 65 5. Arrest 84 6. “Probably Guilty” 104 7. Lizzie’s Long Wait 126 8. Prosecuting Lizzie 140 9. The Court’s Heavy Hand 160 10. Defending Lizzie 175 11. Verdict 193 Epilogue 211 Chronology 217 Bibliographical Essay 219 Index 227 Conforti.indd 7 1/13/15 4:27 PM © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. Conforti.indd 8 1/13/15 4:27 PM © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. EDITORS ’ P R E FAC E The Lizzie Borden case is truly a tale of two cities. Fall River, Massa- chusetts, was a boomtown in the Gilded Age, its skyline filled with the smokestacks of cotton mills driven by the city’s fast-flowing rivers. The cotton manufacturing plants had made a small group of close-knit fam- ilies wealthy, and the Bordens were among them. The well-to-do lived on “The Hill” above the rivers and the coast, in substantial mansions. Closer to the mills below lived a teeming population of native born and foreign born who worked at the spindles and the bobbins. The laboring classes were heavily Irish, French Canadian, and Portuguese. Midway between the two communities lay the simple, almost austere, dwelling of emotionless and pinch-penny Andrew Borden, his second wife, Abby, and his two grown daughters, Emma and her younger sister, Lizzie, and the Irish maid the sisters called Maggie, although her name was Bridget Sullivan. The murders of Andrew and Abby shattered the placid surface of this upper-middle-class family life. The investigation of the murder and the trial of Lizzie Borden revealed the chasm that class and gender cut between the better sort and their lesser neighbors. If circumstantial evidence and her own inconsistent testimony seemed to point the finger at Lizzie, why did an experienced prosecutor worry that he had no case, and women’s groups rally to her cause? When all was said and done, the jury deliberation and verdict were a sensation in themselves. Some landmark cases change the law. Some severely test it. The murder trial of Lizzie Borden is a third type—a case that opens a window onto a time and place. In Fall River, the jarring elements of a substan- tially Irish Roman Catholic police force, a native-born Protestant judi- ciary, a frustrated feminist movement, and the clash of labor and capital all came together. In the maelstrom, Lizzie Borden was not a passive witness. She manipulated the media and reached out to family and class connections, spending the rents and investments that her parsimonious father had accumulated to insure that she had the very best defense team. One thinks of O. J. Simpson’s trial for murdering his estranged wife and a young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Was Andrew equally unlucky, coming back too early from his customary ix Conforti.indd 9 1/13/15 4:27 PM © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. morning rounds, before the perpetrator could establish an alibi for the murder of Abby? Professor Conforti has peered into every corner of the records of the town, the inquest, and the trial, looking for answers. He is especially well qualified as a detective in this case, for he comes from southern New England, his parents were the children of immigrants, he taught for many years at the University of Southern Maine, and he is a re- nowned scholar of the time and the region. The tale in his telling begins with the city and its industry, follows the Bordens into their home and traces their customary activities, painstakingly re-creates the crimes, and weighs the testimony of the principals and the neighbors. With the prosecutor and the police, Conforti tracks every clue. His account of the three legal steps—inquest, preliminary hearing, and trial—is a model of historical reporting, taking the reader with him. The crime was a media sensation, and Conforti’s narrative presents the newspaper accounts as if we were there. The Lizzie Borden murder case remains one of the most contro- versial in the history of American crime. There are many sensational accounts of it, but none so readable or so well balanced as this. x { Editors’ Preface } Conforti.indd 10 1/13/15 4:27 PM © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. P R E FAC E I am a native of Lizzie Borden’s hometown. I was born less than twenty years after her death and raised in Fall River approximately a generation later. Lizzie remained very much alive in the city’s collective memory and oral traditions. We all knew the site of the crime and details, many of which proved to be inaccurate, that made up the Borden story. As we grew older, we realized that outsiders usually knew of our city through Lizzie’s notoriety or infamy. She stigmatized our world. Thus I kept my distance from the blood-soaked crime as I became a historian of New England. It amounted to little more than a murder story, a mystery some said. During all of my years as a New England historian, I don’t recall reading a single book about the crime. None of the many books about the Borden murders was a work of academic history. The last thing I expected was to author a work about Lizzie Borden, especially after recently publishing a book about growing up in our hometown. But I came to realize that what happened in the Borden house in the summer of 1892 amounted to more than a murder mystery, that events surrounding the tragedy and encompassing the trial revealed much about late Victorian life in Fall River and well beyond. What follows is an account of the Borden legal saga from arrest to acquittal. I also hope my narrative provides much more. I have tried to put behind me what I thought I knew about Lizzie growing up. As to her guilt or innocence, I have followed the evidence, as I see it. Much of that evidence is contained in 3,000 pages of courtroom testimony covering three legal proceedings. I have quoted the transcripts as they were recorded, often with inconsistent or incorrect punctua- tion. Sometimes the lawyers didn’t use proper English. I have spared the reader the repeated use of “sic” to note errors. I want to thank Peter C. Hoffer for inviting me to write this book for the excellent, far-ranging series that he co-edits. Peter has not only offered constant encouragement and advice; he has set an outstanding example with his own prolific scholarship. I also want to thank Chuck Myers, Director of the University Press of Kansas, for his unflagging support. xi Conforti.indd 11 1/13/15 4:27 PM © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. Chuck enthusiastically embraced this project from the start, offered sound advice throughout, and helped me navigate the revisions that outside readers urged me to make. I want to express my appreciation to those two anonymous readers for their compelling, detailed evaluations of the manuscript. In countless ways they strengthened my effort to come to terms with Lizzie Borden and her world. It was a pleasure to work with the staff at the press: Larisa Martin, Mike Kehoe, and Rebec- ca Murray. Many thanks to Martha Whitt for her keen-eyed copyediting. Len Rebello in Fall River generously responded to my numerous inquiries from his wealth of knowledge about the Borden case. Doug Norris set me to thinking by asking how well the Bordens were known in New York and beyond. Finally, I want to thank my wife, Dorothy, for her patience as I devoted a second book in a row to a subject I never intended to tackle—my hometown. I dedicate this book to my daughter Antonia. She was nei- ther born nor raised in Fall River. She now knows another piece of my hometown’s story. xii { Preface } Conforti.indd 12 1/13/15 4:27 PM © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. Lizzie Borden on Trial Conforti.indd 13 1/13/15 4:27 PM © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. Conforti.indd 14 1/13/15 4:27 PM © University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press. Prologue It originated as New England’s crime of the century and burst into a seemingly senseless act that captivated the national press and broad segments of the American populace. The Lizzie Borden murder case abides as one of the most famous in American criminal history, immor- talized by the children’s rhyme passed down across generations. Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one. In fact, Abby Borden was Lizzie’s stepmother. A hatchet rather than an axe served as the butcher’s weapon.

Load more