Lizzie Borden (was acquitted on this day in history)
Text from G Keilors 'The Writer's Almanac"
Picture from the Net
“Lizzie Borden took an ax. Gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.” Or did she? On this day in 1893, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the hatchet murders of her father and stepmother at their home in Fall River, Massachusetts, about 50 miles south of Boston. She and the family’s Irish maid were the only other people in the house when Andrew and Abby Borden were hacked to death, in broad daylight and apparently without attracting the attention of anyone on the busy street outside. Andrew Borden was a wealthy businessman. The townspeople could scarcely believe at first that Lizzie, a hospital board member and Sunday school teacher at the affluent Central Congregational Church, could commit the violent acts. She was seen as such a model of rectitude that the head of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union called her a Protestant nun.
And yet Lizzie Borden and her sister had a tense relationship with their stepmother and their father was described as miserly. Lizzie had tried to buy poisonous prussic acid the day before the murders at a nearby drugstore. And a close friend saw her take a bloody dress out of a closet and throw it into the coal stove. The case has inspired books, an opera, a ballet, a movie, and, of course, the immortal schoolyard chant. For a close-up look at the crime scene you can rent a room at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast/Museum.
“Lizzie Bordon took an ax. Gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.” Or did she? On this day in 1893, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the hatchet murders of her father and stepmother at their home in Fall River, Massachusetts, about 50 miles south of Boston. She and the family’s Irish maid were the only other people in the house when Andrew and Abby Borden were hacked to death, in broad daylight and apparently without attracting the attention of anyone on the busy street outside. Andrew Borden was a wealthy businessman. The townspeople could scarcely believe at first that Lizzie, a hospital board member and Sunday school teacher at the affluent Central Congregational Church, could commit the violent acts. She was seen as such a model of rectitude that the head of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union called her a Protestant nun.
And yet Lizzie Borden and her sister had a tense relationship with their stepmother and their father was described as miserly. Lizzie had tried to buy poisonous prussic acid the day before the murders at a nearby drugstore. And a close friend saw her take a bloody dress out of a closet and throw it into the coal stove. The case has inspired books, an opera, a ballet, a movie, and, of course, the immortal schoolyard chant. For a close-up look at the crime scene you can rent a room at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast/Museum.
Lizzie Borden (was acquitted on this day in history)
Text from G Keilors 'The Writer's Almanac"
Picture from the Net
“Lizzie Borden took an ax. Gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.” Or did she? On this day in 1893, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the hatchet murders of her father and stepmother at their home in Fall River, Massachusetts, about 50 miles south of Boston. She and the family’s Irish maid were the only other people in the house when Andrew and Abby Borden were hacked to death, in broad daylight and apparently without attracting the attention of anyone on the busy street outside. Andrew Borden was a wealthy businessman. The townspeople could scarcely believe at first that Lizzie, a hospital board member and Sunday school teacher at the affluent Central Congregational Church, could commit the violent acts. She was seen as such a model of rectitude that the head of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union called her a Protestant nun.
And yet Lizzie Borden and her sister had a tense relationship with their stepmother and their father was described as miserly. Lizzie had tried to buy poisonous prussic acid the day before the murders at a nearby drugstore. And a close friend saw her take a bloody dress out of a closet and throw it into the coal stove. The case has inspired books, an opera, a ballet, a movie, and, of course, the immortal schoolyard chant. For a close-up look at the crime scene you can rent a room at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast/Museum.
“Lizzie Bordon took an ax. Gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.” Or did she? On this day in 1893, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the hatchet murders of her father and stepmother at their home in Fall River, Massachusetts, about 50 miles south of Boston. She and the family’s Irish maid were the only other people in the house when Andrew and Abby Borden were hacked to death, in broad daylight and apparently without attracting the attention of anyone on the busy street outside. Andrew Borden was a wealthy businessman. The townspeople could scarcely believe at first that Lizzie, a hospital board member and Sunday school teacher at the affluent Central Congregational Church, could commit the violent acts. She was seen as such a model of rectitude that the head of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union called her a Protestant nun.
And yet Lizzie Borden and her sister had a tense relationship with their stepmother and their father was described as miserly. Lizzie had tried to buy poisonous prussic acid the day before the murders at a nearby drugstore. And a close friend saw her take a bloody dress out of a closet and throw it into the coal stove. The case has inspired books, an opera, a ballet, a movie, and, of course, the immortal schoolyard chant. For a close-up look at the crime scene you can rent a room at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast/Museum.