A successful businessman in Fall River, Massachusetts, Andrew Borden was killed in an ax murder that claimed both him and his wife Abby on August 4, 1892.
MurderpediaAndrew Borden (left) and his wife Abby, the victims of the infamous 1892 ax murders.
Andrew Borden is best known as an unfortunate victim in a double ax murder — which his own daughter Lizzie was accused of committing. Ever since Andrew and his wife Abby were butchered on August 4, 1892 in the quiet town of Fall River, Massachusetts, historians and amateur sleuths alike have analyzed the gruesome crime and its most famous suspect.
But how much do we know about the man who was Lizzie Borden’s father and suffered her alleged wrath? History generally paints Andrew Borden as a stingy and cold-hearted patriarch. However, there are sources that provide a more positive, or at least forgiving, interpretation of him.
Could some of his past actions either reveal or disprove motivations behind one of history’s grisliest murder mysteries? Here’s what we know.
Examining Andrew Borden’s Early Life
Fall River Historical SocietyAndrew Borden, seen at three different ages.
Andrew Jackson Borden was born on September 13, 1822 to laborer Abraham Borden and his wife Phebe in Fall River, Massachusetts. When Andrew Borden started working, he was a carpenter for the company Southard Miller. Eventually, he left to manage a property owned by his uncle.
In addition, he began a business partnership with William Almy, a unique venture that involved real estate deals, furniture making, and undertaking. Although there is no evidence showing that Borden embalmed corpses, the business did provide coffins, funeral clothing, and burial assistance.
However, here is where the troubling rumors about Borden begin. “It was rumored that he cut off the feet of corpses so that he could cram them into undersized coffins that he got cheap,” says Frank Spiering, author of Lizzie.
Rumors are only just that, but there are no instances on record of Borden being a particularly happy or sociable man. Reserved, yes. Dignified and honorable, occasionally. He was said to be “outspoken in his advocacy of temperance and moral issues,” as Christian men of the time often were.
He eventually married Sarah Anthony Morse in 1845, and the couple later welcomed three daughters: Emma, Alice, and Lizzie.
Andrew Borden’s Relationships And Personality
Wikimedia CommonsThe Fall River, Massachusetts home where the Bordens lived — and where the infamous ax murders took place in 1892.
A successful businessman by the time he reached midlife, Andrew Borden gained additional wealth thanks to his investments in banking and textiles. However, he had also experienced great tragedy. His one-year-old daughter Alice had died in 1858, and his wife Sarah Borden had died in 1863.
He later remarried in 1865 to Abby Durfee Gray. Abby then became a stepmother to Emma, who was 14, and Lizzie, who was four.
Historical accounts suggest Lizzie had a very good relationship with her father when she was a young girl. But as time went on, there were signs that the father-daughter relationship had become strained.
By 1892, a 32-year-old Lizzie was reportedly dissatisfied with her living conditions at her father’s Fall River home on Second Street. Apparently, Andrew did not spend as much on upper-class comforts as other well-to-do families did. He purportedly refused to pay for running water on the second floor of his home, connecting his house to gas mains, or installing a telephone — even though he could afford all of those things and more.
However, he seemed generous in other ways. He paid for his daughters’ education and travels. He also hired a live-in maid to help around the home.
This did not make up for the fact that Lizzie allegedly thought he was more generous to his second wife than he was to his daughters. Many believe that Lizzie was jealous of Andrew Borden’s gifts to his wife. Some have even suggested this ongoing jealousy as a possible motive for why Lizzie murdered Andrew and Abby — if she was actually responsible.
More disturbingly, some historians believe Andrew Borden sexually abused Lizzie as a child, which she initially repressed. The flood of emotions that she’d felt when she remembered could hypothetically account for a violent rage. Author Marcia Carlisle even interpreted the brutal killings as “the awakening rage of the incest survivor.” However, there is no concrete evidence of this alleged child sexual abuse.
The Brutal Deaths Of Andrew And Abby Borden
Wikimedia CommonsAndrew Borden, slain in his house in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1892.
On August 4, 1892, 69-year-old Andrew Borden ate breakfast with his wife and his former brother-in-law from his first marriage in the Bordens’ dining room. Andrew left for work sometime after 9 a.m., but returned to the home around 10:45 a.m. and laid down on the parlor sofa to take a nap.
Shortly after he began resting, he was suddenly and violently attacked in the face with a hatchet. He suffered 11 blows, which rendered him nearly unrecognizable. Not only was his skull crushed in the attack, but one of his eyes had been split in half and his nose had been severed.
By 11:15 a.m., his daughter Lizzie alerted their maid, Bridget Sullivan, that she’d found her father’s lifeless, disfigured body slumped on the sofa.
Andrew’s 64-year-old wife Abby was also murdered with the same hatchet, likely before Andrew was killed (though her corpse was not discovered until after Andrew’s body was found). She already lay upstairs, deceased after being struck 19 times, as her husband was hacked to death.
It was a truly shocking scene that alarmed the whole town. At first, authorities believed that a “foreigner” was responsible for the killings. But before long, suspicion fell on Lizzie Borden, who was then 32 years old.
After all, Lizzie and the maid were the only other people known to be in the Borden house at the time on this particular day. And suspiciously, Lizzie’s account of what happened on the day of the murders kept changing.
The Controversial Trial Of Lizzie Borden
Wikimedia CommonsLizzie Borden, pictured a couple of years before Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered in 1892.
The Borden murders attracted national attention, and the subsequent arrest and trial of Lizzie Borden as the prime suspect sparked much debate.
During the trial, many members of the public were on Lizzie’s side from the beginning. Her defense team mirrored the attitudes of the day that women were too docile and delicate to commit a murder this violent. Furthermore, there was no physical evidence found tying her to the crime.
The defense attorneys highlighted Lizzie’s reputation as a church-going, upper-class, “good” woman. They also pleaded for the men on the jury, many of them fathers themselves, to recognize that a loving daughter was not emotionally capable of brutally murdering her own father.
Early women’s groups of the day came to Lizzie’s defense as well, insisting that her arrest was proof of tyrannical injustice toward women. Others pointed out that she could not truly be tried by a jury of her peers, as women were not allowed to serve as jurors during that time.
Ultimately, the all-male jury was out for only an hour before they delivered a verdict of not guilty. A reporter later learned that their decision was so unanimous, they didn’t debate each other at all. They only talked for an hour to give the impression that their minds were not made up in advance.
As time passed, Lizzie Borden’s acquittal became increasingly controversial. Today, many people now believe that she was guilty, but alternative theories have also emerged about who the killer might’ve been.
Rumors have spread that Andrew Borden may have had an illegitimate son who committed the murders. Some have also speculated that Lizzie’s sister Emma may have been involved in the crime, and yet others have wondered whether someone outside the family could have been responsible.
Andrew Borden’s Grim Legacy
wbur/FlickrRecreations of the skulls of Andrew and Abby Borden after their murders.
Death seemed to follow Andrew Borden. He lost a grandfather and two sisters by the time he was six. His mother, another sister, and a daughter died when he was in his 30s. Then, his first wife died when he was 41.
This frequency of death was not entirely uncommon in the Victorian era. However, Andrew’s extremely violent death alongside his second wife seems to punctuate the underlying sorrow that likely permeated his life.
Learning about this murder, in this time period, might be of use in realizing how gender roles and class distinctions can shape perceptions of crime and the legal system. The wealth of this family, coupled with the perceived weaknesses of the suspect, likely played a role in the trial’s outcome.
History largely remembers Andrew Borden as a somewhat unsympathetic victim of one of the most infamous crimes of the 19th century. The existing accounts of his character weave their way into ominous theories about his murder that still circulate today. But in the end, we’ll probably never know Borden’s true nature — or why he was killed so brutally.
Next, take a look at some other infamous murders. Or, read about some of the most notorious female killers from history.
