Lizzie Borden House

The Lizzie Borden House is where Lizzie Borden and her family lived. It is located on 230 Second Street in the city of Fall River, Massachusetts.[1]

The Borden house at 230 Second Street in 2008

History
The Borden house at 92 Second Street in the late 1800s

From 1874 to 1892, the house was the property of Andrew Borden, Lizzie's father, who was a member of Fall River high society.[2] After Lizzie's trial and acquittal for murdering her father and stepmother in the home, she bought another house located at 7 French Street that she named 'Maplecroft'. Lizzie lived there until her death on June 1, 1927.[1] The house number of 92 Second Street was changed to 230 in 1896.[3][4]

Today

It has operated as a bed and breakfast since 1996 under the ownership of Martha McGinn who inherited the house. Martha's grandparents purchased the house on August 4, 1948. According to Martha McGinn, the room where Lizzie's stepmother Abby Borden was found murdered is the "most requested room" of the bedrooms at the bed and breakfast. The Fall River Historical Society promotes the Lizzie Borden bed and breakfast as a tourist attraction.[5]

Tours of the house often make reference to the possibility of ghostly activity, and in their book The Ghost Chronicles[6], self-proclaimed "medium" Maureen Wood and self-proclaimed "paranormal scientist" Ron Kolek describe experiencing ghostly events in the house. However, investigator of claims of the paranormal Joe Nickell reports that these claims are based upon either unverifiable personal feelings of a ghostly presence or the use of well-known and well-understand techniques like table-tipping that, like ouija board and dowsing rod effects, involve the ideomotor effect rather than the presence of a ghostly spirit.[4]

  • "Thin Lizzie", a 2015 episode of The CW series Supernatural (season 11, episode 5) involved a series of murders centered on the Lizzie Borden House Bed & Breakfast. It, however, does not depict the actual outside of the house nor the people working inside it favorably.
  • Nuka World, an expansion pack for the 2015 post-apocalyptic video game Fallout 4 features a house that resembles the Winchester Mystery House where a narrator tells the story of a young girl named Lucy who murdered her parents.
  • A heavy metal / glam band from Las Angeles named chose the name Lizzie Borden. The lead singer changed his name to be Lizzie Borden.

References
  1. Douglas, John; Olshaker, Mark. The Cases That Haunt Us. Scribner. pp. 117–118. ISBN 978-0-7432-1239-7.
  2. Cartwell, Mary (July 26, 1992). "Lizzie Borden Took an Ax". The New York Times. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
  3. "Chronology 1789–1892". The Lizzie Andrew Borden Virtual Museum & Library. 2015. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 29, 2015.
  4. Nickell, Joe (April 2020). "Lizzie Borden's Eighty-One Whacks". Skeptical Inquirer. 44 (2): 22–25.
  5. Shea, Lois (October 29, 1995). "Lizzie Borden's house to be B&B Crime scene: Opening is set for next August, but fans of the Fall River ax murders are already reserving rooms". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
  6. Wood, Maureen; Kolek, Ron (2009). The Ghost Chronicles. Naperville, IL: Sourcebook. ISBN 1402225113.
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