Bridget on the stairs: a post for the Lizzie Borden anniversary

This post is for the anniversary of the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden, husband and wife, killed August 4, 1892. Andrew's daughter Lizzie was accused and underwent a trial that was in all the newspapers of the day, a huge national spectacle that ended in her acquittal.

I had long been fascinated by this case and the idea that Lizzie might've "gotten away with murder," for surely she was convicted by the jury of the Public, if not by the jury of her peers (well, actually, the jurymen were not her peers; I blogged about that here).

The more I learned about the case, the more my interest circled around one individual whose role was consistently downplayed: the Irish maid Bridget Sullivan. Bridget had been in the employ of the Borden family for several years, had tried to quit a few times, and was the only person in the house that fateful day besides Lizzie and the victims.

Why was Bridget's role not larger in the trial? Because of her immigrant status. In the cartoon above, originally from Harper's Weekly and found in the book Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Immigration to America, you can see how the Irish were deplored as they arrived in the 1800s, often hungry and poor.

This cartoon ran April 28, 1883, almost a decade before the Borden murders, but is a good example of how Americans viewed the arrival of the Irish. The cartoon's title reads, "The balance of trade with Great Britain Seems to Be Still Against Us" and its text says, "650 paupers arrived at Boston in the steamship Nestoria, April 15th, from Galway, Ireland, shipped by the British Government." The sails on the dinghy rowing out to meet the ship say, "From New York, the DYNAMITE," which I initially thought to be the wish to blast the immigrants into oblivion, but has a more complex meaning, referring to Irish-American activists who used dynamite in the fight for Irish independence from Britain.

At right is Bridget Sullivan.
At left is Kristen Stewart playing her in the movie Lizzie.

Sentiment was strong against the Irish. Many shops had signs in their windows stating, "Irish Need Not Apply." On the day of the Borden murders, Lizzie called out to Bridget to fetch Dr. Bowen across the street, but when he was not available, Lizzie did not then send her to the Irish physician who lived next door (nor the French one through their orchard on the next street). No. She sent Bridget to fetch her friend.

Hosea Knowlton who led the prosecution's case against Lizzie said that he felt Bridget knew more than she was telling, and yet there was no true surge of pressing her for information.

Bridget testified for the prosecution, and yet I'm mystified why she wasn't grilled to the point that she could let go of some very interesting information. Lizzie was seen burning a dress soon after she was told (in a blunder by the mayor) that she was suspected. Where did that flammable dress come from? It had been secreted in a kitchen cupboard next to the stove in which she burned it. The kitchen was Bridget's territory. How could something wind up in one of her cupboards without her knowing? Bridget knew about the tensions in the household and erratic behavior, yet held her tongue. Why? Politeness? Misplaced loyalty to... well, Lizzie wasn't her boss. The two victims were. Who knows what was in Bridget's mind?

The door with the clock is the cupboard in question.
The stove isn't original but stands where Bridget's stove stood.

I titled this post, "Bridget on the Stairs," because this is the most compelling detail of the case to me. Mrs. Borden was killed first, and lay undiscovered upstairs. Mr. Borden then came home from his morning errands, and could not seem to make his key work (hm, inside job?) so he ran the bell and Bridget let him in. As the two were at the door, Lizzie on the stairs behind them laughed. Bridget told the court so.

At a certain point on that staircase, you can see directly into the guest room where Mrs. Borden was then dead, halfway under the bed, crawling to get away from the blows that ruined her head. One's eyes, when one stands on the stairs, are at floor level with the victim. Perhaps Mrs. Borden's eyes were open, staring in terror at whoever stood on the stairs and laughed.

Me a few years ago on the stair where you can see the upstairs floor

Well, that is Lizzie on the stairs, not Bridget. Except that...after Mr. Borden's body had been "found" downstairs by Lizzie and the alarm given (and Bridget ran to fetch the best friend)...time passed and people began to wonder aloud where Mrs. Borden was. Lizzie actually asked Bridget to go upstairs and see if she was there. Bridget wisely refused to go alone, and neighbor Mrs. Churchill accompanied her. At the same place where Lizzie had stood and laughed, Bridget saw Mrs. Borden's body. She continued up and into the room to verify that Mrs. Borden was dead, perhaps hoping she was only injured and could be revived. Yet anyone who saw that crime scene would know Mrs. Borden would never rise again.

What you see standing on that stair. That's the bed the visitor is walking towards,
and the docent is lying on the other side. She isn't, however, halfway under the bed
as the real Abby was found.

I've spent a lot of time contemplating Lizzie on the stairs, but not so much Bridget. And now as the anniversary comes around again, I think about the betrayal involved in Lizzie forcing her servant to go upstairs to find Mrs. Borden's corpse (or...was it collusion? Or was Lizzie truly innocent? Agh, we will never know). After the autopsies --performed in the dining room-- the bodies remained in the house overnight. As did the living: Lizzie, Bridget, Lizzie's sister who came back into town upon receiving a telegram, and the friend of Lizzie's whom Bridget had fetched). Did Bridget again climb those stairs to aid the sisters? Or did she shun the staircase forever? (Her stairs, to the attic, were off the kitchen...the same stairs Andrew and Abby used).

Stairs have long been held to be symbols of transitions. If you dream of stairs, it can mean you are thinking of transition and change. For sure, the staircase played a dramatic role in the Borden murders. The jury, in fact, went to visit the house during the trial and each paused on the staircase to see the view that possibly meant Lizzie laughed in exultation looking at her victim. You too can climb the stairs if you visit the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast in Fall River, Massachusetts.

My novel The Murderer's Maid tells the story from Bridget's point of view, as well as including a modern-day narrative focusing on the issue of immigration.

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 “A complex and riveting parallax view of domestic crimes, decades apart.” -Kirkus

“Those interested in the Lizzie Borden tale…will appreciate Mailman’s research and be rewarded with this new perspective.” -Booklist

“Erika Mailman writes a page turner of a thriller that will fascinate as well as terrify….Don’t read this at night; it will give you nightmares.” -New York Journal of Books

 

“Erika Mailman’s kaleidoscopic narrative melds true crime, historical fiction, and elements of a psychological thriller, all hinging on a singular question: ‘Who isn’t a survivor from the wreckage of childhood?’” -Foreword Reviews

More on Bridget Sullivan's grave

Me connecting with Bridget

Raise your hand: how many of you visit cemeteries on your road trips?  When one of my children found out the incredible coincidence that my novel's real-life character Bridget Sullivan's grave was in the small town we'd be visiting, she said—and I quote— "Here we go again."

Anaconda, Montana, has a population of about 9,000, the same as the Vermont town I grew up in. It was founded by Copper King Marcus Daly in 1883; he tried to call it Copperopolis (which is really fun to say) but the name was already taken. Bridget Sullivan—Lizzie Borden's maid— is listed on Wikipedia as one of 25 notable people who lived there. Bridget settled here sometime after the 1892 murders in Massachusetts; intriguingly, no one knows what happened to her for an intervening period of years before she wound up in Montana. Perhaps she went back to Ireland for a bit? That's definitely a happy thing to consider.

See the preceding post for a little bit about the uncanny nature of learning I'd be visiting Anaconda.

The east-west streets in Anaconda are named for charmingly named for trees, but not alphabetized. Tucked in there between Oak and Hickory is Main Street, and at the end of it is a stunning county courthouse.

Anaconda courthouse

 
Check out that eagle of justice!

I sometimes like to think I have intuition about things and I just felt like the cemetery must be near. Sure enough, to the right of the courthouse we spied a little curving road up into the hillside. Jackpot!
We had a decision to make: choose between the upper cemetery or the lower. We chose upper, parked the car and started walking. There were four of us, and we fanned out to better seize upon Bridget.

View of Anaconda from upper cemetery

There were some incredible markers there, like this one that has tree limbs "falling off" in a beautifully stylized manner.

We quickly found some Sullivans, but not a Bridget.

Then, one of my children called excitedly from a few rows away. She had indeed found a Bridget Sullivan, but someone whose birth date was about twenty years off (even given that it's not fixed in stone—ha ha—when Bridget was born, but she claimed to be 26 years old at the time of the 1893 trial). So we kept plugging. It was a hot day. I decided it was time to call it quits, that I'd go to a local establishment where I could pick up wifi, check the website findagrave.com, and then go straight to Bridget. (My cell carrier gave zero service in Montana).

My laptop malfunctioned and I couldn't get wifi on it, but I did pick up the wifi in my phone...for all of ten minutes before it died. I had been left at the wifi place for an hour while the rest of my family went for ice cream, so I spent some time cursing my luck; I couldn't call them to return earlier! I was over-air conditioned and shivering, went outside and boiled. Am I complaining enough yet? Luckily, those ten minutes of scant wifi did let me ascertain that the whole time we'd been plugging through that cemetery near the courthouse, we were in the WRONG CEMETERY.

So much for intuition!

When the family picked me up, I directed us straight to Mount Olivet Cemetery, which was small enough that we could troll the paths in our car. Even better, I had seen a picture of the gravestone so could describe what we were looking for. We found it pretty quickly.

I loved it that Bridget was up on the hillside. Here's her view of the town (you can see that smelting chimney in the distance). I'm glad she found love, that she had a husband beside her in the ground. And I thoroughly believe she must've loved the wild landscape of Montana, its breathtaking mountains...she traded a busy river town for a remote area where you rotate 360 degrees and see nothing but mountains. Montana is gorgeous.

What Bridget "sees" from her grave. See the smelting tower at the upper right.

A writer friend Genevieve Beltran joked that I dig deep as a writer...six feet down. It's true that it was moving for me to see Bridget Sullivan's grave. Although reports from her relatives are that she was stern and had no sense of humor, I hope that she did find peace.

Rest in peace, Bridget Sullivan.

Bridget and John's grave in the foreground

If you want to know more about Bridget, my novel The Murderer's Maid tells the Lizzie Borden story from her point of view.

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“Erika Mailman writes a page turner of a thriller that will fascinate as well as terrify….Don’t read this at night; it will give you nightmares.” -New York Journal of Books
“Erika Mailman’s kaleidoscopic narrative melds true crime, historical fiction, and elements of a psychological thriller, all hinging on a singular question: ‘Who isn’t a survivor from the wreckage of childhood?’” -Foreword Reviews
“A complex and riveting parallax view of domestic crimes, decades apart.” -Kirkus
“Those interested in the Lizzie Borden tale…will appreciate Mailman’s research and be rewarded with this new perspective.” -Booklist

. . . . .

Bridget Sullivan's grave

My experience of the Lizzie Borden story is through a somewhat different lens than most people; I view it through the eyes of Bridget Sullivan. She was the Irish immigrant maid employed by the Borden family a few years before the murders took place. It is said she tried to quit several times, but Mrs. Borden always talked her into staying. Bridget was at the house the day that Mr. and Mrs. Borden were slain by hatchet, Aug. 4, 1892. The only other person we know was there that day was Lizzie, who underwent trial for her father and stepmother's deaths, and was acquitted. My novel The Murderer's Maid tells the story of these iconic American murders from Bridget’s point of view.

I’m a writer whose had a significant amount of uncanny things happen through her writing. One was writing a novel about witchcraft and then learning my ancestor had undergone witchcraft trials several times. More recently, after my book about Bridget Sullivan came out, my husband’s brother invited us to visit him at his cabin in Montana. What town in Montana?

Oh, it just happens to be the same small town in Montana that Bridget Sullivan settled in, after a hiatus of years in which her trail went temporarily cold. The town is Anaconda.

I had a rare chance last week to visit the grave of my character. She is buried next to her husband John Sullivan (he already had that very common Irish last name, so she didn’t need to change hers, although I guess she could’ve called herself Bridget Sullivan Sullivan). Her side of the shared grave is higher than his, and I fancifully imagined it was her bulky shirts and petticoats causing the difference. Someone had left bouquets of colorful fake flowers on both their graves.

Bridget is on a hill overlooking the town of Anaconda, with a lovely view. She can also see the tower which I think is a smelting tower where her husband would’ve worked. I ran out of time to do that research on this trip, but I hope to return. I’d also really love to connect with Bridget’s great-niece who lives in a nearby town.

So here, a few days before the 126^th anniversary of the murders, is a photo of Bridget Sullivan's grave at the Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Anaconda, Montana. Next post: more about the search for Bridget's grave (hint: it wasn't easy, although it should've been).

. . . .

 

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Did Lizzie Borden commit murder naked?

I love how this still is so close you see the texture of their skin. Courtesy, Sundance Review

The reviews for the new Lizzie movie reveal a few interesting things about the plot and its interpretation of the historical events of 1892. For one thing, it utilizes the interesting thought that Lizzie might've murdered her father and stepmother in the nude. Much easier to clean blood off skin than off fabric.

The Elizabeth Montgomery made-for-TV movie of the 1970s used this idea, and seeing the camera dwell on her beautiful calves as she walks towards murder adds a little verve to an already fantastically-rendered movie. Other notable movie moments: Lizzie sneaking down to the dining room where the victims were kept overnight, and lifting the sheet on her father's corpse to...can barely type this....kiss him. And I love it that this movie shows a dispassionate Lizzie, as she was in real life. The only moment where she ever shows horror is for herself, when the attorney forces her to grasp that she may hang for this crime.

But the new movie takes this idea a step further. Not only does Chloe Sevigny disrobe, but Kristen Stewart does too. Lizzie and her Irish maid together strip naked to perform the murders.

Hmmmm.

I have to say, my first thought is a pragmatic one. And kind of a disturbing one.

There just isn't room for two people to commit these murders. Not in the cramped quarters of the Borden home (Mrs. Borden was slain in a narrow alley between bed and dresser) and more definitively, not in the small real estate of where the hatchet blows landed.

The heads, to be exact.

Mrs. Borden had one blow on her upper back, but other that, only the heads bore wounds.

19 blows for Mrs. Borden, and 11 for Mr. Borden a few hours later.

Plaster casts of the Bordens' skulls used as evidence in the trial, now on
display at the Lizzie Borden B&B

If you think about the average head size...and now the average hatchet head size...it would just be awkward for two people to try to murder together. Maybe they each had a hatchet and took turns? I shudder.

I'm not sure how the movie will handle this, but I'm sure fans of both actresses will be happy to see skin. Sevigny told Indiewire, "It’s just a really carnal moment, and I just thought it would be really arresting. I trusted in [director] Craig’s restraint and [cinematographer] Noah’s beautiful photography that they would make me look good. Now I feel extremely vulnerable!" The murder scene was shot on Sevigny's 42nd birthday, and I applaud her bravery in letting loose with what is likely a far more toned body than the average middle-aged woman has!

By the way, Lizzie was 32 at the time of the murders.

And if you want to know about Kristen Stewart (who plays the maid Bridget Sullivan), she is now 27 years old, much closer to the age of the character she plays: 27.

If you want to read my piece about spending the night in the Lizzie Borden B&B, click here. I stayed in Bridget's attic bedroom.

 

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. . . .

Lizzie Borden's interconnected rooms

The floor plan: no central hallway

I’ve now read a few articles in Filmmaker Magazine that reference “interconnected rooms” on the set of the Borden house. That is so truly integral to the plot, both upstairs and downstairs.

In this piece, “Making a Film is Always a Chaotic Experience,” director Craig McNeill talks about the struggle to find an appropriate house, and concludes, “We found a house that, while different looking than the Borden home, did have several interconnected rooms which was a notable and unusual characteristic of the Borden residence.”

This article features cinematographer Noah Greenberg talking about wanting the film to be “visually elegant and ominous” with characters filmed at the edges of the shot, never centered. I found it to be a really fascinating article.  And Greenberg, too, mentioned the interconnecting rooms:

There were many scenes in Lizzie where we would move through, or see into, several interconnected rooms following a character. With a small lighting package and team and very limited time between setups it was challenge to balance/motivate the light consistently (at a useable stop) across these rooms while keying off practical sources such as a double wick candle held by an actor or an oil lamp on a side table.

All right. So why do those rooms need to flow into each other?

Downstairs: The sitting room where Mr. Borden was killed has doors leading into the front entry, the parlor, the dining room, and the kitchen. Four different ways to enter… and presumably its “fishbowl” type of layout means it would be difficult for a killer to murder him without someone in the house being aware. One of Lizzie’s alibis is that she was in the dining room ironing… well, that was mere feet away and it would simply impossible for such a noisy murder to take place so nearby without her being aware of it. I mean noisy in terms of what the hatchet did to his skull. Mr. Borden himself made no alarms because he was asleep when attacked.

Upstairs bedrooms and that famously winding staircase

Upstairs: the home upstairs is like a “shotgun shack”—you must walk into Lizzie’s bedroom to reach Emma’s and the parents. Although, famously, the door between Lizzie and the parents was nailed shut, and Andrew and Abby Borden used the servant’s stairs to access their chambers. The guest room where Abby was killed leads into Lizzie’s, although there was a desk blocking it.

The home was strange; there’s no doubt about it. It was originally intended as an apartment building, with full living quarters on the bottom and second floors. Andrew converted it to one unit when he took ownership. If you think about feng shui and the energy created by multiple doors flowing into a room and then being blocked, it creates a disturbing sense. Almost like Shirley’s Jackson’s Hill House, where the angles don’t exactly add up to 90 degrees.

It’s a disquieting house. Claustrophobic is the word that springs to my mind most often when I think about it. Small, cramped, enraging.

Chloe coyly sitting where Andrew was murdered (well, on a replica sofa)

I’m disappointed the movie wasn’t shot at the real house. When I visited there last year, there was a photo on display of Chloe Sevigny sitting on Andrew’s sofa and there was great excitement about the upcoming movie (which premiered LAST NIGHT at Sundance!). We were told Chloe had a Lizzie Borden fascination and wanted to film the movie in situ, but because there is a federal building nearby, it created too much of a security hazard for Fall River to agree.

I’m dying to see the movie. I’d love to see how they used the rooms in the house they did locate, and am glad there was awareness of the importance of the rooms flowing into each other.

The Borden House in the Lizzie movie

The real Borden home, today a B&B

I fervently hope this movie gets a distribution deal so I can see it someday soon.

If you want to know more about this story, my novel was written from the maid's point of view--Bridget Sullivan was the only other person in the house the day of the murders, besides Lizzie and the victims.

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. . . .

Lizzie Borden's staircase

The staircase, seen from the top looking down

In any story, there’s always some detail, large or small, that sticks with you. For me with the Lizzie Borden narrative, it’s the idea that the front stairs curved around such that at some point as you climbed, you’d be looking into an upstairs bedroom at floor level. And that when Mrs. Borden was lying murdered on an upper floor and the maid Bridget Sullivan was trying to open the front door to Mr. Borden (thus facilitating his murder), Lizzie Borden stood on the stairs behind Bridget and laughed.

She may have been looking at Mrs. Borden’s body, eye to eye, when she did that.

I believe I'm standing on the step that lets me see under the guest room bed

The idea simply chills my bones. I opened my novel with that scene (and circled back to it towards the end in an altered, poetic-license kind of way).

The 1893 jurors actually visited the Borden household to see its strange layout and, yes, to climb those stairs and see if it was possible to see a body on the floor underneath the guest room bed.

If you visit the Lizzie Borden B&B, you are given the same chance the jurors were given. A docent may even lie down on the floor where Abby Borden lay, so that you get a more visceral experience.

Stairs are somewhat creepy even without corpses at the top. Discuss?

. . . . .

Lizzie Borden claimed her stepmother received a note from a sick friend

Lizzie at her most nubile, perhaps

One of the prevailing mysteries of the Lizzie Borden murder case is the note Mrs. Borden purportedly received the morning of August 4, 1892, which Lizzie claimed called her away to care for an ill friend.

The note was never found.

And Mrs. Borden was not visiting a sick friend. She was lying upstairs in the guest room dead for hours before her body was discovered.

Did the note even exist?

Did Mrs. Borden receive a note from a sick friend?

Or was it a way for Lizzie to explain to her father, when he returned from errands, why Mrs. Borden wasn’t home (although she was, in a manner of speaking)? And further, once Mr. Borden had been murdered and “discovered,” was it a way to explain why Lizzie, for a while, displayed no concern or worry about where Mrs. Borden might be?

Mrs. Borden never told any living witness other than Lizzie about the note. Although Irish maid Bridget Sullivan testified about it, she was only repeating what Lizzie had told her. Notices were placed in the newspaper to try to locate the person that might’ve been sick or sent the note, with no success.

People conjecture that perhaps the note was sent to Mrs. Borden by the killer. But, in Victoria London’s book A Private Disgrace, she makes a good point. Why would anyone “write a note to get her away when he was going there to assassinate her?” (London 342)

Perhaps the note writer only wanted to kill Mr. Borden, thus trying to get Mrs. Borden out of the house and out of harm's way. But then why wouldn’t Lizzie be pulled away too? And perhaps even Bridget?

Emma, Lizzie’s sister, was away visiting friends in another town. Lizzie was supposed to be away, too, at the seashore. Perhaps the killer (if it wasn’t Lizzie herself) knew this, but wasn’t aware she had changed her plans and decided to stay home?

Is it possible Mrs. Borden did indeed slip out, visit a sick friend and then return, all without being noticed? It’s unlikely. The household was small and Bridget was washing windows, indoors and out, moving back and forth to refill her bucket. It’s possible Mrs. Borden left without it being remarked if Bridget was temporarily in the barn where the tap was, or by Lizzie who was always avoiding her anyway…but the houses were close together and neighbors watched. 

In fact, neighbors witnessed and testified about Mr. Borden returning from his errands, and about poor Bridget running across the street to fetch a doctor when Mr. Borden’s body was found scarcely an hour later.  

Borden house, center. To the right, the white house is where a neighbor saw Mr. Borden
returning from errands. The house on the left is not seen in this view, but is also very close by,
and from the window Mrs. Churchill saw Bridget run across the street. The small structure
with one window is the barn where Lizzie claimed to be when Mrs. Borden was murdered.

 

Even if Mrs. Borden did go to the sick visit, what happened to the note? Did she burn it, drop it?

Or was it all just an invention of a frazzled murderess?

. . . .

Lizzie Borden's crime scene photo has a ghost in the wallpaper

A "Brigadoon" photo shoot with the book in today's fog

I'll never forget the first time I looked at the crime scene photos for
the Lizzie Borden case. This predated the Internet and these kinds of
things were not a mere keystroke away. You would've had to have visited a
library or bookstore to see these images.

In fact, I had visited my job. :)

I worked in a law firm at the time, and my boss had a long row of maroon
volumes with gold lettering, the Notable Trials Library. These books are
stunning, with true gold leaf on the page edges, handsome paisley
endpapers, even a little red satin ribbon that operates as a built-in
bookmark. One of these was a reprint of TRIAL OF LIZZIE BORDEN, edited,
with a history of the case, by Edmund Pearson. Pearson dedicated the book,
originally published in 1937, to Hosea Knowlton, the prosecutor in the
case who failed to get Lizzie convicted.

I'm of course wishing I could go back in time and see what other cases
were immortalized in this way--it could keep me busy as a writer for a
long time.

Although the book comes with a handsome built-in bookmark, you can
see I needed to avail myself of more!

Anyway, the crime scene photos were so murky and badly lit that you had to
study them to really see what you were looking at. I'm going to talk today
about the photo of Mr. Borden in particular, for one crazy reason. There's
a gentleman standing in the corner looking over at Mr. Borden's prone body
on the sofa: and you can see the wallpaper through his body.

My first thought was that he was a ghost. It makes a terrifying photo even
more terrifying to think that. Mr. Borden's head cannot be determined in
the photograph because it is a dark mass of blood competing with the dark
of his Victorian settee and the dark Prince Albert coat that had been
bunched up underneath his head. His coat was there presumably as a sort of
pillow for his nap or perhaps the way Lizzie got away with the murder
without having any blood on her (if she wore it during the blood spatter,
then took it off and thrust it under his head). Which reminds me, I want
to go back and look at the maid Bridget Sullivan's testimony as to whether
Mr. Borden hung up his coat in the hall when he came in from errands that
fateful day, or if he kept it with him when he went to the sitting room.

Anyway, the photograph is already upsetting without thinking there's a
ghost in it. But I'll let you either scroll down to see it, or opt out.




scrolling



it's scary



scrolling

Besides the "ghost," I incorporated the little round table into my novel

I assume it's part of the extended exposure time required by photographs
in that era. Does that explain the man being transparent while the
wallpaper is more solid? If you know why, I'd love to hear your
explanation in the comments.



. . . .

 

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. . . . . 

Is a good breakfast important? Lizzie Borden's dad and stepmom provide cautionary tale

Banana oatmeal chocolate cookies and coffee: replicating Lizzie Borden's breakfast?

You can have cookies for breakfast if you put oatmeal in them! #truefact

So, I did, and it made me think about a breakfast 125 years ago. A breakfast that was examined much later in a glass jar by a forensic scientist, trying to determine how long ago the breakfast was eaten, based on the degree of digestion.

I'm talking of Andrew and Abby Borden, victims of separate vicious hatchet attacks in the same Fall River, Massachusetts, home on Aug. 4, 1892. The attacks were fatal for husband and wife.

The couple breakfasted together with a visitor, John Morse, the brother of Mr. Borden's first wife who had died. Much attention was paid to their strange repast.

They ate warmed-over mutton soup.

What the heck is mutton? Lamb.

They had a meat soup for breakfast. Pause for a moment to digest that. (ha!) Not only that, but that same mutton roast had been served up in different ways over the course of a week. It may have been going bad. In 1892, refrigeration was a chunk of ice in a cupboard and whatever foods you could quickly scoot in and out of the cupboard without the cold air escaping or the ice melting too quickly.

They also ate johnnycakes. Phew! Way more traditional. A sort of pancake made with cornmeal rather than flour. The other bit of breakfast put upon the table was . . .  cold slices of that same mutton. I refrain from commenting.

After eating, Mr. Borden and Mr. Morse prepared to leave the house for their errands, while Mrs. Borden went upstairs to change the pillowcases on the guest bed where Mr. Morse had slept the night before. She never left the room alive.

Abby Borden

Bridget Sullivan cleared the breakfast table, and Lizzie Borden came down later for her breakfast. She didn't dine with her father and stepmother anymore, not after a family dispute a few years earlier. Lizzie's sister Emma was away visiting friends in another city.

Lizzie ate cookies for breakfast.

Perhaps they had oatmeal in them to justify this.

She had one cup of coffee with her cookies. Bridget Sullivan assured the court Lizzie never had two cups.

Bridget washed windows, outside and in, while Lizzie did any number of things.

Mrs. Borden was attacked during this time period, upstairs in their small home, and her body was left undiscovered for several hours.

Andrew Borden

Mr. Borden came home, sat down on the sitting room sofa to read the newspaper, fell asleep, and was attacked.

After letting Mr. Borden into the house, Bridget had gone up to her attic bedroom to take a nap. She awoke to Lizzie calling her downstairs because, "Someone has come in and killed Father!"

So...why was the breakfast important?

Mr. and Mrs. Borden ate at the same time, but Mr. Borden's stomach contents were considerably more digested. In other words, the breakfast helped roughly establish time of death. And since Mrs. Borden predeceased her husband, his entire estate went to his two daughters rather than any relations of Mrs. Borden, who was Lizzie and Emma's stepmother. Who they resented. Whose relatives they resented.

When you stay at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, you get to experience a version of this breakfast. I was sad they did not serve mutton stew, but honestly I would've taken one spoonful for experience's sake and then let it sit. I hate to see food go to waste. So instead, you are served johnnycakes (they are actually pancakes), eggs, fruit and potatoes. Standard fare. And no one threw up! (I'm deliberately suppressing a vital bit of information about the Borden household, which is that there was possibly food poisoning or possibly outright poisoning in the days before the hatchet murders).

Me at the B&B

If you're interested in my narrative about my overnight at the B&B, click here to read my article in The Millions.

They say a good breakfast is the best way to start your day. Unfortunately for the Bordens, they seemed to have proved that true in reverse.

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Wash on Monday, but not if you're Lizzie Borden's maid

Hungarian women washing clothes, NYPL Digital Collections

There's an old nursery rhyme that once helped addled housewives remember their duties:

Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Bake on Wednesday,
Brew on Thursday,
Churn on Friday,
Mend on Saturday,
Go to meeting on Sunday.

But not in the Lizzie Borden household. At least not during the week in which Mr. and Mrs. Borden were murdered. We know Irish maid Bridget Sullivan did the washing that week on Tuesday, breaking with a major tradition. Of all her failings, this is surely the one that upsets me the most. ;)

How do we even know such a bit of minutia?

Well, because there happened to have been a bucket of bloody cloths in the basement after the murders. Menstrual cloths, Lizzie told the police investigators. But could they have also included crime scene blood and the rags used to clean it up?

Washing clothes, NYPL Digital Collections

Before disposable pads existed, women used real cloth to catch their flow. Victoria Lincoln, author of the Lizzie Borden book A Private Disgrace, first introduced me to the idea of birdseye fabric being specifically used for this purpose. The used fabric would be put to soak until wash day, when the family maid would boil water and begin the arduous task (I initially wrote "harduous," which made me laugh) of washing with soap flakes and multiple rounds of rinsing, all while lifting heavy fabric. I think things are heavy when I move them from the washer to the dryer; I can't imagine being responsible for them when absolutely dripping.

So, Lizzie had her period and was bringing cloths to the basement for soaking. But the timing was interesting. Officer Medley of the Fall River Police Department said he spoke with Lizzie on August 4, 1892, the day of the murders, about the bloody towels. She told him the pail had been there three or four days (i.e., she started menstruating Aug. 1 or 2) and that everything was copacetic; she had already told the doctor about it. Appeal to False Authority, right? The doctor can excuse possible crime scene cleanup materials because he knows all about lady parts.

BUT!

When Medley talked with Bridget Sullivan, she said she had not noticed the pail until the day of the murders, and it could not have been there on Aug. 2 because that was the day she did the washing. August 2 was a Tuesday; the murders were on a Thursday.

Sooooo???

Well, the most important thing obviously is that Bridget didn't follow that housekeeping rhyme. The second most important thing is that all these men were way too squeamish about the bucket, trusted Dr. Bowen's dismissal of it, and failed to follow through with Bridget's assertion that the bucket had only appeared that day.

You can learn more about that bucket, and about Lizzie's midnight visits to the basement (several of them, in the dark, by lantern light) the night of the murders. Her poor friend who accompanied her reported that she walked right past the bloodied clothes of her father and stepmother, left in the pile on the floor, without any concern. Where can you learn more, you ask? Why, in this well-researched novel:

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Thanks for reading. More Lizzie facts tomorrow!

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