Skip to main content

Fall River Legend

March 2023
1min read

I would be invisible but nonetheless present in a certain house at 92 Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts, on the sweltering hot morning of August 4, 1892. At breakfast I would join elderly, tightfisted Andrew Borden, his second wife, Abby, rather stout at two hundred pounds and five feet tall, and Lizzie, the thirty-twoyear-old unmarried daughter of Andrew and his first wife. The necessity of my invisibility would become only too apparent later in the morning, but at this point I would be rather thankful to be under no obligation to partake of the cold mutton, bananas, and black coffee.

Following this meal, the last for Andrew and Abby, I would observe Andrew leaving the house for a walk, after meticulously locking the door, as was his habit. I wouldn’t have long to wait—perhaps an hour at most—before learning the secret that has mystified generations of Americans, and put the name Lizzie Borden forever into the annals of American legend.

In the second-floor guest bedroom around ten o’clock I would see the hand that held the hatchet and the nineteen blows that rained down on Abby’s head and shoulders. I would hear Lizzie laughing as the Borden maid, Bridget, struggled with the locked door to let Andrew back in the house about an hour later. I would observe him lying down on the sitting-room couch for a nap and then, within a few minutes, I would be a witness to the third horror of the morning (if you count the breakfast as the first). It wouldn’t be easy to stand by as Andrew’s brains were splattered over the nearby wall in a shower of blood. But I’d know whether the brutal perpetrator was Bridget, Emma (Lizzie’s sister who was supposedly out of town but who conceivably could have returned), John Morse (a houseguest the night before and brother of the first Mrs. Borden), an intruder, or, indeed, Lizzie, who was found innocent of the crimes by a jury ten months later.

I would know, but I’d never tell.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "December 1984"

Authored by: David Shi

At the turn of the century, a crusading magazine editor exhorted women to seek peace of mind and body through simplicity. For a generation, they listened.

Authored by: Kenneth Finkel

For sixty-five years this photographic company has been recording America from overhead

Authored by: Richard H. Hopper

When did we start saying it? And why?

Authored by: Q. David Bowers

Solid-gold coins were legal tender for most of the nation's history. In their brilliant surfaces we can see our past fortunes.

Authored by: Edward Sorel

He was more than just a cartoonist. He was the Hogarth of the American middle class.

Authored by: The Editors

… 1885 that is, month by month

Authored by: Charles C. Hemming

All this Florida boy wanted to do was rejoin his regiment. Instead they drafted him into the Confederate secret service.

Authored by: Jerome Tarshis

California has always been as much a state of mind as a geographical entity. For the better part of two centuries, artists have been defining its splendid promise.

Featured Articles

Famous writers including Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts turned Sleepy Hollow Cemetery into our country’s first conservation project.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.  

The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.

Roast pig, boiled rockfish, and apple pie were among the dishes George and Martha enjoyed during the holiday in 1797. Here are some actual recipes.

Born during Jim Crow, Belle da Costa Greene perfected the art of "passing" while working for one of the most powerful men in America.