I swiped this from another ng I read. I think this would make a fantastic B&B. Thanks Mike, if
you're reading.
Michael
*******
Begin article:
In case you missed it,
asking price of $699,920. Real estate taxes are $7,649
House of the week: 'Lizzie Borden' B&B on market in Fall River
01:00 AM EST on Saturday, January 17, 2004
BY AVIS GUNTHER-ROSENBERG Journal Staff Writer
FALL RIVER, MASS. -- On the morning of Aug. 4, 1892, Andrew J. Borden, 70, and his second wife, Abby
Durfee Borden, 65, were brutally murdered -- struck repeatedly in the head, neck and shoulders with
a hatchet. You can own the murder site, complete with ghostly apparitions and mysterious cat
meowings, unexplained door closings and startling visions, loud rappings and the echoes of
children's laughter.
Or, if you don't believe in ghosts, you can buy a beautifully kept 3,146-square-foot Greek-revival
residence complete with period furnishings and historical treasures to be run as a profitable bed
and breakfast or converted back to a stately private home.
Of course, you could go in thinking the latter, and circumstances could change your mind . . .
The house, at 92 Second St., was built in 1845 by a carpenter whom Andrew Borden worked for. Borden
-- who held several jobs including banker and coffin maker -- bought the house for himself, Abby,
and his two daughters from his first marriage -- Lizzie and Emma.
One of the major family conflicts involved the house, which Abby and Andrew wanted to stay in and
Lizzie wanted to leave for a more elegant house overlooking the city in the Highlands. In fact,
after Lizzie was tried and acquitted of the murder charges, she moved to a Highlands house she
called Maplecroft. A caretaker remained here for 25 years. Ultimately, she and Emma sold it to him
for "a dollar plus considerations."
The house was in several different hands, until Josephine and John McGinn bought it in 1948. Their
granddaughter, Martha McGinn, lived here during her teen years, in Emma's former bedroom.
After their deaths, McGinn -- along with business partner Simone J. Evans converted the house to a
bed-and-breakfast. Using historical documents and police photos from the murder scene, McGinn and
Evans restored and furnished the house as closely as possible to the way it was in 1892, complete
with reproductions of the floral wall coverings and carpeting, and the distinctive Victorian
furnishings. Over time, they also acquired several items that belonged to Lizzie, including one of
her dresses, her sewing machine, and several of her books. They even have a costume Elizabeth
Montgomery wore in the made-for-television movie, The Legend of Lizzie Borden.
"One of the books we got a kick out of was named, With Edged Tools," McGinn says.
McGinn and Evans opened the bed and breakfast on Aug. 4, 1996, the 104th anniversary of the murders.
The house has the original windows, woodwork, ornate radiators and doorknobs, and all two original
interior doors. The central air conditioning is a modern addition, as are electricity and bathrooms.
(The Bordens had kerosene lamps and an indoor privy in the basement with "slop pails" in the
bedrooms.)
And while there are things from the house that Lizzie owned at Maplecroft -
- like her sewing machine -- most of the furnishings of this house were lost when the waterfront
storage building they were housed in was destroyed in a hurricane.
The dining room table, sideboard and hutch came from Maplecroft, and are of the era Lizzie lived
there, but McGinn says she can't document that they were owned by Borden. A silver tea set on the
sideboard was donated by a Borden descendant, but was not Borden's.
In the entry foyer -- the entrance that Andrew Borden had some difficulty getting in on the day of
the murder -- a mannequin is attired in Lizzie's own dress. A piano has been placed in the front
parlor where Lizzie would have taken lessons.
Lizzie's bedroom has both a bed and a fainting couch, as documented in stories about the house at
the time the Bordens lived there.
"She had to have one in case she got the vapors," McGinn says.
But the most amazing restorations are at the two murder scenes, where police photographers provided
stunning documentation of what the house looked like. McGinn and Evans were able to find duplicates
of the sitting room sofa where Andrew was killed while he lay resting from the midday heat, and the
bed and bureau of the guest room where Abby was hacked to death while changing the covers on the
bed pillows. Copies of the photos of the bodies hang in frames on the walls above the spots they
were found.
Other bizarre features include the heavy wooden door -- reportedly a coffin cover made by Borden
into a hatch -- that closes off the upstairs rooms, and a trap door in the floor of one of the third-
floor bedrooms -- the one that belonged to the Bordens' maid Bridget, who was supposedly in the yard
washing windows at the time of the murders. McGinn says that one of the owners after the Bordens was
a bookie, and that the trap door led down to a dry well in the basement.
"The story is that when Sharky got word the cops were coming to raid them, he threw the betting
slips down through the trap door to a fire he kept burning in the basement."
With all the eerie and ghoulish happenings in the past, is the Borden house really haunted?
"We hear footsteps all the time," McGinn says. "I have all my life. Or a door will open or shut or
lock by itself. But they aren't nasty. They are not malicious."
Once, during a snowstorm, a caretaker once heard pounding on the front door, but there was no one
there when he went to answer it, she says. Then he heard pounding on the back door, but there was no
one there either. He thought at first someone was playing a trick on him, but there wasn't a single
footprint in the freshly fallen snow.
Some guests have reported hearing a woman crying. Others swear they hear children playing marbles.
For the longest time, McGinn couldn't understand that. Then she found out about another murder
next door.
"We found out there were two kids next door, and their mother drowned them in the well,"
McGinn says.
Several people have reported hearing a cat meowing, but only the house manager reports actually
seeing the ghostly figure of a cat.
"People say Lizzie killed one of Abby's cats, but I have serious doubts about it," McGinn says.
"When she died, she left a lot of money to the Animal Rescue League, and she bought her pets
headstones when then died."
Another frightening tale involves two maids who went up to make the bed in the guest room that Abby
was murdered in.
"One went downstairs, and the other went back to put towels in," McGinn says. "All of a sudden,
there was an imprint on the bed like someone was lying there." When the other maid returned to the
room at her insistence, she saw it, too. "The maid wouldn't even go back in the house to get her
paycheck after that."
Has McGinn ever actually seen a ghost? Once, as a teenager, she says: "I was coming downstairs to
the basement to do laundry, and I saw what looked like a silhouette of a woman in Victorian clothes
floating 3 or 4 inches off the floor."
What did McGinn do? "I ran upstairs and did my laundry later. The laundry still needed to be done."
Then there is the strange matter of the murder date -- Aug. 4, 1892. McGinn's grandparents, who
had no idea they would buy the crime scene more than two decades later, were married on Aug. 4,
1925. They signed the purchase-and- sales agreement on Aug. 4, 1947 or '48. McGinn was born on
Aug. 4, 1954.
McGinn and Evans have enjoyed owning this home of mysteries, but have decided to place the building
on the market in order to spend more time with their families, McGinn says. All of the furnishings
and some of Lizzie's clothes and personal items are included in the asking price of $699,920. Real
estate taxes are $7,649.
The sale price also includes the businesses. Bed and breakfast room rates are $150 to $200 a night
and up, depending on occupancy. Emma and Lizzie's bedrooms and Andrew and Abby's bedrooms form two
two-bedroom guest suites. There are four additional guest rooms -- one on the second floor and three
on the third, including maid Bridget's room.
In addition, the house connects to 5,945 square feet of commercial space that houses Leary Press.
The business and the house sit on an 8,162-square-foot lot across from the bus station, in the heart
of downtown Fall River.
Paula Drake of Riverside Realty, Somerset, Mass. has the listing. For more information on the house,
you can visit the bed-and-breakfast Web site at Lizzie-Borden.com or the Fall River Historical
Society Web Site at LizzieBorden.org.
projo.comprojo 20040117 borden.1d686e.htmlOpen ↗
Fall River PD transcripts of questioning of Lizzie
--
Deathbed statement...
"Codeine . . . bourbon." ~~Tallulah Bankhead, actress, d. December 12, 1968