Lizzie Didn't Do It!. William Psy.D. Masterton

      From Lizzie Borden Sourcebook p. 38

      There is evidence, though, that Emma was not as meek and mild as legend has it. Lizzie referred to her stepmother first as "mother" and later as "Mrs. Borden". Emma called her "Abby" from day one, even though she was only a teenager when her father remarried. Perhaps Emma's disdain for Abby came from her own mother, Sarah Borden, who was brought up by a stepmother she intensely disliked.

       Bridget Sullivan emigrated from Ireland in May of 1886. She worked in Newport, Rhode Island and South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, before settling down in Fall River. In November of 1889 she went to work as a maid for the Bordens. She gave her age as twenty five at the time of the murders, but recent studies indicate she was born in March of 1864, which would make her twenty eight in August, 1892.

       Regardless of how old she was, there is general agreement that Bridget Sullivan was a very good looking young woman. Newspaper sketches of Bridget suggest that she may have been a tad overweight by today's standards, but never mind. Joe Howard, a well-known reporter who covered the Borden case, said she was, "tall and spare, with an intelligent face, a good eye, a prominent nose, and a mouth indicating a love for the good things of life." The Fall River Globe was practically ecstatic about Bridget. After calling her "comely", the paper went on to say that she, "has a handsome complexion and always dresses neatly and tastily. In fact she appears to be the bestdressed member of the whole Borden family." Lizzie must have been infuriated by that comment.

      FIGURE 2.6 Bridget (Maggie) Sullivan

       To describe Bridget's personality, the word "excitable" comes to mind. Certainly she showed more emotion than Lizzie on the day of the murders. Charles Sawyer, the guard at the door, put it well. "The servant girl appeared to be somewhat frightened. I thought she acted as though she was considerably excited, although she talked intelligently." That night, Bridget refused to stay in the Borden house, even though all the doors were locked and police were standing guard outside. A few days later, when a policeman asked her what she thought about the murders, Bridget replied, "I'd be afraid to say anything at all. If I did, that terrible man that killed poor Mrs. Borden might come back and kill me too."

      One of Bridget's duties at the Borden house was cooking. The meals she cooked shortly before the murders are listed below. (Several of the menus must be incomplete; otherwise the whole family would have suffered from malnutrition.) Notice the preponderance of mutton, served three times in a row.

      LE MENU, CHEZ BORDEN, AUGUST 1892

      (1) A small, inedible pancake made by frying corn meal

      (2) John Morse thought it tasted like veal

      (3) Warmed mutton was what Bridget Sullivan would have cooked for dinner if . . .

       The final breakfast is a famous one. It has been said, not entirely in jest, that it must have been the catalyst if not the cause of the murders. Keep in mind, though, that hearty breakfasts such as this one were much more common in the "good old days" than they are today. Growing up in rural New Hampshire in the 1930s, I can remember eating warmed over steak for breakfast (it tasted a lot better than mutton).

      House of Horror

       The photograph below shows the Borden property at 92 Second Street as it looked a few months after the murders. The narrow 22 story house faces Second Street; the back of the property abuts houses on Third Street. The ornate picket fence at the front had two gates. The one shown at the right led directly to the front door; the other gate led to a side entrance located towards the back of the house. There was also an entrance in the rear (not shown) which opened into the cellar. It's not obvious from the photograph, but the entire property was enclosed by wooden fences which separated the Bordens from their neighbors.

      FIGURE 2.7 Front view of Borden house, circa 1892

       Behind the house you can see the two story barn, where Liz-zie said she was when Andrew was murdered. Until a year or two before the murders,Andrew Borden kept a horse; in August of 1892 the barn served no useful purpose except as a storage area for articles no longer used but too valuable to throw away. To the right of the barn were several pear trees, which have been mentioned a couple of times already. Apparently everyone in the household except Bridget liked, or at least ate, pears.

       The Borden house was built in 1845 as a two-family tenement. The first and second floors were virtually identical at that time; each contained a kitchen, two medium sized rooms and two small rooms. When Andrew Borden bought the house in 1872, he converted the upstairs kitchen to a master bedroom. Downstairs, a partition between the two small rooms was removed to make a dining room. The resulting layouts of the two floors are shown in the diagram below.

       The downstairs parlor was almost never used. Had President Harrison come to visit, he would probably have been entertained there, but ordinary guests like John Morse made themselves comfortable in the sitting room. That was where Andrew and John talked in the darkness on the night of Wednesday, August 3. It was also where Andrew Borden was murdered on Thursday and where the funeral was held on Saturday.

       The kitchen was where the "survivors" (Lizzie, Bridget, Adelaide Churchill, Alice Russell and Dr. Bowen) gathered after Andrew's body was discovered. Notice that in order to get from the kitchen to the front stairs, you had to pass through the sitting room. Perhaps that was why Bridget refused to go alone to look for Abby in the upstairs guest room; she had to pass by Andrew's body on the sitting room sofa.

      FIGURE 2.8 Layout of the Borden house

       From Goodye, Lizzie Borden, pp. 14, 15

       The second floor was effectively divided into two compartments. The two rooms toward the back (master bedroom, dressing room) were accessible only from the back staircase; the door to Lizzie's room was blocked by a heavy bureau. The three rooms at the front, facing Second Street (Lizzie's room, Emma's room, and the guest room) could be reached only from the front staircase. Notice that Emma's room was considerably smaller than Lizzie's. When the Bordens moved into the house, Emma, as the older sister, got the larger room. When Lizzie came back from Europe they switched. According to Emma, that was her own idea; maybe so, maybe not.

       The back staircase went all the way from the cellar to the attic, where Bridget's room was located. Notice that she was far removed from the sitting room; given that and the street noise, it's hardly surprising that Bridget was unaware of Andrew's murder when it occurred.

       The Borden house in 1892 had only one modern convenience, central heating furnished by a coal furnace. When city water became available in 1874, Andrew installed two cold water taps, one in the first floor sink room, the other in the laundry room in the cellar. Later he added a third faucet in the barn so he could water his horse. For all this, Andrew paid the city of Fall River $10 a year.

       There was no convenient source of hot water in the Borden house. If you wanted

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