A Stockport link in a spooky tale... the trial of Lizzie Borden, 1893
By Johnathan Cowden
3rd Nov 2024 | Local Features
Warning - this article contains some graphic images.
A Stockport link in a spooky tale... the trial of Lizzie Borden, 1893
Lizzie Borden took an axe,
Gave her mother forty whacks,
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one...
Towards the end of the 19th century, the town of Fall River, Massachusetts, was second only to Manchester in cotton production. The town came to be known as 'Spindle City'.
The growing cotton industry made Fall River an attractive place for settlers from the 'old world'. This included many people from Lancashire, as well as Stockport, which was itself a major centre for cotton manufacture at the time.
By 1892, Fall River had become rich and prosperous.
But that year, the town would bear witness to a grisly murder which shook America and is still remembered in books, films, theatre, and a popular children's nursery rhyme.
Lizzie Borden was born on 19 July 1860 in Fall River, to Sarah Anthony Borden and Andrew Jackson Borden. Lizzie was only three years old when her mother died. Within three years of Lizzie's mother's death, her father married Abby Durfee Gray, who became Lizzie's stepmother.
The Bordens were a very affluent family; by the time of Andrew's death in 1892, his estate was valued at $300,000 (around $10,000,000 in 2024). This meant that when a family argument arose in July of that year, Lizzie and her sister, Emma, had the means to take extended vacations to the nearby town of New Bedford.
The argument in question was one of several that had occurred over the few months before Andrew's death on 4 August 1892. It seemed to centre around the fact that Andrew had recently given gifts of real estate to multiple branches of Abby's family.
Lizzie's uncle, Morse, had been staying in the Bordens' guest room in the night prior to 4 August, but had left the house that morning. It was usually the job of the sisters - Lizzie and Emma - to clean the guest room. On this day, however, it was Abby who went upstairs at some point between 9am and 10.30am to clean it. It was the last thing she would ever do.
The first blow of the hatchet struck Abby in the side of her head. The blade hit just above her ear, knocking her to the floor and bruising her face. The killer then delivered a further 17 blows with the axe to the back of Abby's head, killing her on the guest room floor.
Andrew arrived home from his morning stroll not long after. Strangely, his key failed to open the door, and so he was let in by the family's live-in maid. He reportedly asked where Abby was when he entered - Lizzie replied that someone had called for her, asking Abby to visit a poorly friend.
By 11am, Andrew too was dead.
The killer once again struck with an axe, this time around 11am. The hatchet struck him 10 or 11 times. Andrew was believed to have been napping at the time of the first blow - indeed, an especially gruesome detail is that one of his eyes was split in two, suggesting that the victim was asleep when the murderer struck.
The trial took place in New Bedford, Massachusetts, starting on the 5 June 1893. Points of contention in the case were the murder weapon, and whether Lizzie was even in the house at the time of the murder. Multiple axes were found in the basement of the house, including one with its handle removed (possibly because the wood was covered in blood which couldn't be cleaned off).
One very contentious part of the trial involved some poison that Lizzie had supposedly purchased from the local druggist the day before the murders. William Bence, born in Stockport in 1826, likely never imagined that his chemist son, Eli, would one day sell hydrogen cyanide to a suspected murderer and be made to testify in court about it.
That piece of evidence was controversially ruled to be too remote in time to be relevant (it is worth noting, however, that the Borden family was reportedly ill before the murders).
The jury was sent to deliberate on 20 June 1893. After an hour and a half, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden. She exited the courthouse and told journalists that she was "the happiest woman in the world".
The murderer, whoever that may have been, had got away with it.
Lizzie died rich, 34 years later. By the time of her death, she was worth today's equivalent of $5,884,000. The people of Fall River never quite shook their fear of her though, and she was ostracised until the day she died.
Lizzie left $500 of her fortune (about $12,000 in today's money) to the perpetual care of her father's grave. No-one can say whether this was a genuine act of care, or a final twisted joke.
On the 1st of July 1927, Lizzie died of pneumonia.
Andrew Borden now is dead,
Lizzie hit him on the head.
Up in heaven he will sing,
on the gallows she will swing...
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