Who is Lizzie Borden?
Born in 1860, Lizzie Andrew Borden was the younger of two daughters of the richest man in Fall River, Massachusetts, Andrew Borden. Her mother died when she was just a child, and a stepmother they both despised raised Lizzie Borden and her sister, Emma. The New England spinster, who lived with her father and stepmother, Abby, at 92 Second Street, appeared respectable from the exterior, even working as a Sunday School teacher. It is likely that if not for the horrible axe-murder forever associated with her name, Lizzie Borden would have lived and died a life of total obscurity. Many believe that Lizzie Borden was oppressed by the harsh, dispassionate New England mindset that she knew from birth. Borden had an unusually close relationship with her father, Andrew Borden. The fact that she was never romantically involved with other men have led many to believe that Borden may have been sexually abused, sparking rumors of incest. In her later life, Lizzie Borden also maintained a lesbian af
August 4, 1892 dawned with the sweltering promise of hundred degree temperatures over Fall River, Massachusetts. In the Borden house at 92 Second Street, the maid, Bridget Sullivan, awakened around six AM and entered the kitchen to prepare the morning meal of mutton broth, johnny-cakes and cookies. The Bordens, except Lizzie, and their house guest, “Uncle John” Vinnicum Morse, awoke at seven. Sister Emma was away visiting friends at Fairhaven, a nearby seaside town. For Andrew Jackson Borden aged seventy, and his wife, Abby Durfee Gray, aged sixty-four, this unbearably hot Thursday morning would be their last on earth. Life on Second Street for the Borden sisters, Lizzie Andrew, aged 32 and Emma, 41, was lonely and contentious. Their real mother had died many years before and neither daughter cared for their father’s second wife, whom Lizzie often contemptuously referred to as “Mrs. Borden.” This was especially true after Andrew Borden gave her some stock in 1887. Both Lizzie and Emma
The time was 1892, the place was Fall River Massachusetts. On August 4, the bodies of Lizzie Borden’s stepmother, Abby Durfee Borden, and her father, Andrew Jackson Borden, were found in their house at 92 Second Street. Mrs. Borden was in the upstairs guest bedroom, dead from 20 hatchet blows to the face and head. Mr. Borden was dead on the couch, barely moved from a sleeping position. His head suffered 10 hatchet blows. In what was then termed the “Trial of the Century”, Lizzie Borden was acquitted despite the strong evidence against her. The jury of 12 men acquitted her basically because of the social ideals attributed to women at the time. No one could believe that a God fearing, well bred, charitable young woman could muster the passion necessary to axe murder her mother and father. During the trial, the defense downplayed Lizzie’s often contradictory statements and lack of an alibi. Her claim, that her menstrual cycle brought on a seizure which blacked out her memory of the events
Lizzie Andrew Borden (July 19, 1860 – June 1, 1927) was a New England spinster who was tried for the brutal axe murders of her father and stepmother in the late 19th century. Although she was acquitted, she is remembered chiefly as the subject of the following doggerel, sung to the tune of Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Aye: Lizzie Borden took an axe And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done She gave her father forty-one. The anonymous rhyme is erroneous, both in its presumption of guilt and its gross over-estimate of the number of wounds her step-mother suffered 19, her father, 10 but has served to ensure Lizzie Borden’s place in American folklore. Source. Lizzie Borden information on the web crimelibrary.com lizzie-borden.com halfmoon.org umass.edu lizzieandrewborden.com wikipedia.org curiouschapbooks.com aw.umkc.
