Lizzie Borden’s infamous haunted house

The infamous Lizzie Borden House is said to be one of the most haunted houses in New England after a brutal ax murder occurred inside. After the murders, there are stories that the ghosts still haunt him.

Lizzie Borden took an ax
and gave his mother forty blows.
When he saw what he had done,
She gave her father forty-one.

Step back in time to the home of one of America’s most notorious unsolved crimes: the Lizzie Borden House on Second Street in Fall River. Experience her spooky atmosphere and hear her chilling stories as you explore this legendary haunted house full of secrets and the occasional supernatural surprise!

Grab a candle, head upstairs, and learn the history of the famous New England home. She finds out how in 1892 Andrew and Abby Borden were discovered brutally murdered in this very house, passing down stories for generations to come.

Who was Lizzie Borden?

Lizzie Andrew Borden was born in 1860 in Fall River Massachusetts and was also given the name Andrew because her father wanted a son. She grew up in a wealthy family in what would later become known as Lizzie Borden House. Although a wealthy family, her father was well known for being frugal and they had a complicated relationship to say the least.

She grew up with her sister, Emma Lenora Borden, and was involved in church activities such as Sunday school, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and the Ladies of Fruits and Flowers Mission.

Two years after her mother’s death, her father remarried. They did not get along and Lizzie believed that she had married her father for his wealth. Her live-in maid, Sullivan claimed that both Emma and Lizzie rarely ate with their father and her stepmother.

Before the murders, tension grew in the family inside the Lizzie Borden House. Her father continued to gift real estate to her stepmother’s family. Days before the murders, the whole family was seriously ill and her stepmother feared the poison as her husband was not really a popular man.

Her father had also killed pigeons in the barn with hatches that bothered Lizzie. She had built them a shelter, and after a family argument, she was even sent to New Bedford and she didn’t return until a week before the murders.

The ax murders at the Borden house

On August 4, 1892, his stepmother and father were found axed to death in their home in broad daylight. When Lizzie Borden was questioned, she gave strange and contradictory answers.

The police investigation was subsequently criticized for its lack of diligence, as they did not even check her for bloodstains, only searching their room cursorily and letting them stay in the house the following night after the murder. They also had an ax that they thought might be the murder weapon, but never bothered to take fingerprints even though it was a method police had pioneered elsewhere.

Lizzie Borden was arrested and taken to a trial that received much media coverage across the country. During the trial there was also another ax murder that looked a lot like the Borden house, and many began to side with Lizzie Borden and claim her innocence.

In the end, Lizzie Borden was cleared of all charges and released after many stood up for her, including her maid, sister, and neighbors, who testified that she never could have.

Life after the murder trial

After she was acquitted of the trial for the murders, she moved into a house with her sister and they stayed in Fall River. As she left the court she said that she was ‘the happiest woman in the world’.

But for the rest of her days, she was an outcast in Fall River society. Even if she was found not guilty at trial, the fact that the killer was never found and the strange rumors about her continued and fueled the idea that she might have done it after all. Even her maid, Sullivan, confessed on her deathbed that she had allegedly lied on the stand to protect Lizzie Borden.

No one was arrested for the murders, but Lizzie Borden’s guilt and motive have been debated ever since with no answer found.

The hauntings at Lizzie Borden’s house

After the gruesome murders at Lizzie Borden House, the house itself has drawn attention to itself for being a haunted house where a great deal of paranormal activity takes place. The house is preserved as it was and he is arranging tours to further speculate on what really happened on that fateful hot August day.

The ghost of Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother, Abby and Andrew, is said to haunt Lizzie Borden’s home, still trying to uncover the truth about her murder.

However, a longtime guide has another explanation for the strange sounds many attribute to ghosts. After putting air conditioning in the house, sound travels in a strange way as Lizzie Borden’s house fills with holes and cracks.

Another haunting that is said to be happening is the death of a mother who murdered her children next door. A woman named Eliza Darling Borden had three children. She murdered two of them before taking her own life in 1848. One theory is that she killed herself in the house that would eventually become Andrew Borden’s in 1872.

It is even rumored that Lizzie frequents the place. She is said to not only haunt Lizzie Borden’s house, but she also frequents the place known as Maplecroft, the house she lived in on French Street after the trial. However, what is she hanging around the place for? Is it because of the pain and trauma after the horrible murders that occurred? Or is she perhaps guilty since she herself was really the murderer?

more like this