And so it was that 126 years ago today the city of Fall River secured its place in history—albeit unwillingly—not as the Spindle City, the famed cotton capitol of the world, but as the scene of a horrific double parricide and the birthplace of its prime suspect, Lizzie Andrew Borden.
The city was stunned; as the telegraph wires hummed with the gruesome details, the country followed suit—and so did the civilized world.
Fall River and Lizzie Andrew Borden were inexorably linked, the bond as rock-hard and enduring as the city’s native granite.
Following a sensational trial where Lizzie was acquitted, she returned home a free woman.
Sentenced by the court of public opinion and haunted by the specter of suspicion, she was, to many detractors, a cunning murderess.
Thus her story has assumed legendary proportions, making it difficult to separate documented fact from legend and innuendo.
Every new artifact contemporaneous to the event that surfaces provides another link in the chain—another piece to the puzzle.
And so, as promised, following is the content of the recently discovered letter sent to Prosecuting Attorney Hosea Morrill Knowlton in the late summer, 1892, by some anonymous author.
Monday P M
Dist Attorney Knowlton
Dear Sir: –
Now that the cranks have had their say, we would like to have our say.
We were going by the house on the morning of the murder, when we saw two men come from behind the house and jump over the back fence and disappear.
One had an axe which was red, and the other had a pair of overalls which were dabbed with something red which looked like blood.
Not thinking anything of it at the time we said nothing and came to our homes in Boston and after reading a good deal about the murder we thought we would tell what we knew.
We happen to know who the men were and where they have gone.
The letter coming from “John” was true and he was one of the two men we saw, the one who carried the axe.
Please have this published because it will go some ways towards freeing Lizzie, especially if we should decide to testify at her trial.
What that medium said was mostly true, all except the description of “John” she got that twisted.
She must have had a man around her the time she wrote the letter.
For Gods sake free Lizzie.
Yours truly
_________
P.S.
No need of our names at present as we are away for the summer
Perhaps I am missing something, but I do find it curious that the letter writer did not think it out of the ordinary to witness two men leaving a house—one with an “axe which was red” and the other with bloody overalls—and “jump over a fence and disappear.”
Interesting, if true.
The FRHS, as the central repository for material pertaining to this infamous Borden case and the life of Lizzie A. Borden, is indebted to the donor for their generous contribution.
