Speaker 1: Here's where we are in the story of Fall River, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: and the misfortune that has befallen it for almost two
Speaker 1: hundred years. In eighteen forty three, two little boys discovered
Speaker 1: a cannon behind a large warehouse and they ignited it.
Speaker 1: The dry conditions and nearby woodshavings created a firestorm, and
Speaker 1: the city was nearly ruined. Four people died, at least
Speaker 1: one of them probably from cardiac arrest, all because of
Speaker 1: two curious little boys who were never identified in the newspapers.
Speaker 1: But one of the little boys may have lived right
Speaker 1: across the street from the warehouse. It would make sense
Speaker 1: because that boy was ten year old William Darling, and
Speaker 1: he lived in the home with his mother, Eliza Hathaway
Speaker 1: Darling Borden, and his stepfather, Lodwick Borden, Andrew Borden's uncle.
Speaker 1: That made lod Wae Lizzie Borden's great uncle and Eliza
Speaker 1: her great aunt. We'll talk more about Eliza and her
Speaker 1: background in a bit, but first let's consider the strange
Speaker 1: coincidence of the great fire of Fall River in eighteen
Speaker 1: forty three and the Bordens living right across the street.
Speaker 1: Relative Carrie Nolty says, The connection is odd.
Speaker 2: They were there, they were living across the street from
Speaker 2: the block that was burned. It literally was across the
Speaker 2: street that everything just went up. And I mean she
Speaker 2: would have had a little boy who would have been
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood, probably playing, and there is every chance
Speaker 2: that it was her little boy by her first marriage
Speaker 2: that was one of the boys that started the conflagration.
Speaker 1: That sounds reasonable and heartbreaking for Fall River. Who could
Speaker 1: the people there really blame two little boys.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm sure it looked like a hell escape.
Speaker 2: People had to take others into their home and allow
Speaker 2: them to stay with them because their homes were burned,
Speaker 2: their businesses were burned, everything that they had was gone.
Speaker 2: It was I'm sure a time of immense pain and
Speaker 2: upheaval and grief and I'm sure guilt for whoever those
Speaker 2: two children that started the fire.
Speaker 3: And they never.
Speaker 2: Identified any other boys, those two boys, not that I
Speaker 2: could find. I would love to know, But that could
Speaker 2: have been for their own protection. Maybe they just didn't
Speaker 2: know who it was, and maybe they were trying to
Speaker 2: not let two little boys catch hell for burning an
Speaker 2: entire city down.
Speaker 1: So then when did curR incident happened.
Speaker 2: Elizas five years later, eighteen forty eight.
Speaker 1: More about that tragedy. Shortly, the Great Fire of eighteen
Speaker 1: forty three proved that one tiny decision could all and
Speaker 1: entire community. Forensic chemist Rachel Burks says that accidental fires
Speaker 1: are still common and still tragic, but no one should
Speaker 1: be blamed. There are a variety of reasons that they
Speaker 1: can happen.
Speaker 4: Sometimes we disregard the directions on the back of a
Speaker 4: bottle or you know, be careful about that.
Speaker 3: And it's like, yeah, these.
Speaker 4: Things happen if you're a real hot day and you
Speaker 4: lose power right for a lot of reasons, and the
Speaker 4: way you've stored something, we got to really take care
Speaker 4: And sometimes again it may be it's not malicious, it's
Speaker 4: just a mistake.
Speaker 3: It's just an unfortunate accident.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened that July afternoon at the back
Speaker 1: of the warehouse. An unfortunate accident.
Speaker 5: I mean, those kids, I don't know what happened, Like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I think setting off a cannon into a pile of fuel,
Speaker 5: But again, like the magnitude of.
Speaker 6: It is what you know may often don't think about.
Speaker 1: Rachel says that fire and water both represent something to
Speaker 1: people in history, and maybe that was the case with
Speaker 1: the fire of eighteen forty three.
Speaker 7: And the thing, of course with the fire imagery, which
Speaker 7: is very interesting, is the cleansing fire of biblical kind
Speaker 7: of connotation. And you know, of course it's it's nice
Speaker 7: for us to say we don't believe in that kind
Speaker 7: of stuff anymore.
Speaker 4: It's like, but a lot of them, a lot.
Speaker 6: Of people do.
Speaker 5: Actually people believe in like they're you know, the own
Speaker 5: iconography of the twenty first century.
Speaker 1: An accidental fire in the nineteenth century could destroy an
Speaker 1: entire town, as we've learned, and it can alter the
Speaker 1: way a town recovers and who gains power. Author Carol
Speaker 1: Robertson wrote the book on Lizzie Borden, The Trial of
Speaker 1: Lizzie bordon and she notes one last interesting thing about
Speaker 1: the fire in eighteen forty three and how it shifted
Speaker 1: things in Fall River. She says that the fire really
Speaker 1: changed the dynamics of power in what would soon become
Speaker 1: a very important and very wealthy mill town.
Speaker 6: You know, I remember it's being spellbound hearing this story
Speaker 6: when I first went there. You know, it's it's such
Speaker 6: a because there's so much. There's so much drama in it.
Speaker 6: You know, there are multiple marriages and this man dying
Speaker 6: in this spectacular way. You know, the fire is fascinating
Speaker 6: because it does rearrange the relative status of some of
Speaker 6: the families. You know, basically, like a handsome man marries
Speaker 6: Mary's a widow and he dies in the fire and
Speaker 6: leaves everything to his son. I think, you know, basically
Speaker 6: the money goes out of the family that it was
Speaker 6: supposed to be in, and I think it goes out
Speaker 6: of the Bordon family into the Durfy family, and you know,
Speaker 6: there's sort of ill will that existed for a lot
Speaker 6: of years after that.
Speaker 1: It turns out that Andrew and his uncle Lodwick Bordon
Speaker 1: were connected all the way back to Thomas Cornell Junior
Speaker 1: from our last season in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Carrie Nolty
Speaker 1: helps me out with the family line.
Speaker 2: So Thomas Cornell Junior and Sarah Cornell had a daughter
Speaker 2: who was born after he was hanged, and they named
Speaker 2: her Innocent, and I assumed for the seventeenth century she
Speaker 2: had a fairly normal childhood.
Speaker 1: Eventually, Innocent Cornell became a Bordon, like a lot of
Speaker 1: people did.
Speaker 2: She grew up and married a fellow townsperson named Richard Bordon,
Speaker 2: and they moved across the bay to the town that
Speaker 2: would eventually become Fall River, Massachusetts, and they just continued
Speaker 2: living and going on and they ended eventually had children.
Speaker 1: So were innocents and her husband.
Speaker 3: Is it Richard, yes?
Speaker 1: Were they the Bordons that made them move to Fall
Speaker 1: River or is there any family that came separately in.
Speaker 2: So Richard and Innocent Bordon they moved across the bay.
Speaker 2: They probably did come with some other family members because
Speaker 2: usually if people were moving, they moved in groups.
Speaker 3: So after a while, the.
Speaker 2: Bordon's proliferated in this area. So you would have a
Speaker 2: branch of the family that was quite well off, which
Speaker 2: you see really come to a head that kind of
Speaker 2: friction in the Lizzie Bordon story, and a branch of
Speaker 2: the family that were not.
Speaker 1: Carrie says that Richard and Innocent and eventually Andrew were
Speaker 1: from the branch that was not wealthy.
Speaker 2: They did not have the money, They were not really
Speaker 2: that well off. And part of that, I think is
Speaker 2: that with Innocent her father being hanged and her half
Speaker 2: brother older brothers inheriting all of his estate there really
Speaker 2: wasn't much.
Speaker 3: Left for her.
Speaker 1: Remember, after Thomas Cornell Junior was hanged, and Innocent was
Speaker 1: raised by her mother, Sarah Earle, and Sarah's second husband.
Speaker 1: But Carrie says Innocent might not have received much money
Speaker 1: even if Thomas had been acquitted and had retained the property.
Speaker 2: Not that women were left very much by their parents
Speaker 2: in this time period anyway, but especially being the daughter
Speaker 2: of a hanged criminal murderer and the daughter of an
Speaker 2: accused murderer, she probably wasn't very well off. It probably
Speaker 2: really set that branch of the family back in quite
Speaker 2: a bit of ways.
Speaker 1: Borden author Kara Robertson says that the lack of wealth
Speaker 1: affected most of the Burdons down the line, including Lizzie's father, Andrew.
Speaker 6: You know, not all of them prospered. And Andrew Borden's
Speaker 6: father was the fact that a fish pedler. You know,
Speaker 6: that's how low he had fallen, or at least his
Speaker 6: branch of the family had fallen.
Speaker 1: Kara says that despite the poor start, the Bordons flourished
Speaker 1: in fall River.
Speaker 6: The Borgans were among the founders of the town of
Speaker 6: fall River, and actually a member of the Bordon family
Speaker 6: owned the water rights to the Quickwachan River, which is
Speaker 6: a extremely important title.
Speaker 1: When the town was developing. The river was crucial.
Speaker 6: As a town like that is developing, and it's it's
Speaker 6: the river that ends up providing a lot of hydroelectric power.
Speaker 6: And through intermarriage with four or five other families, they
Speaker 6: basically end up controlling almost all the mills and any
Speaker 6: of the other factories in the area. And they all
Speaker 6: live in the same area, which is something called the
Speaker 6: Hill District in Fall River, which is the elite residential area.
Speaker 1: Kara says that the five families created a social club
Speaker 1: of sorts, and it seemed to be exclusive.
Speaker 6: And then they run their own little mini society with
Speaker 6: their you know gatherings that you would expect launching the
Speaker 6: young people and sort of ensuring the continuation of the line.
Speaker 1: But Fall River society was tough to break into, especially
Speaker 1: if you weren't a Barden or a Durfy or one
Speaker 1: of the other important families.
Speaker 6: So it's an odd mix of a place. There definitely
Speaker 6: codes in terms of how one is supposed to behave
Speaker 6: and how one is supposed to display their wealth. That
Speaker 6: makes it different from.
Speaker 1: New York I asked Kara for an example.
Speaker 6: There's a there's a great story of Detroit heiress who
Speaker 6: marries into Fall River society and she's taken aside by
Speaker 6: one of the matriarchs and told that her trousseau is
Speaker 6: a little dressy for Fall River, you know, because she'd
Speaker 6: had everything made in Paris, and so the advice is
Speaker 6: basically to leave it in a trunk to age for
Speaker 6: a little bit, you know, so she's not too a
Speaker 6: la mode. You know, there are there are Yankee characteristics,
Speaker 6: you know, of frugality and hard work, and you can't
Speaker 6: be too showing.
Speaker 1: Kara says that the five main Fall River families were
Speaker 1: very important to the city's history, and that similarly Fall
Speaker 1: River was very important to the Industrial Revolution in the
Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 6: That's the thing about Fall River is that you know,
Speaker 6: they're five main families, but they're you know, there are
Speaker 6: a lot of branches. So in the same way that
Speaker 6: Andrew Borden is a bordon and that's one of the
Speaker 6: biggest names in Fall River, He's descended from a lesser line.
Speaker 6: So if you look at you know, if you look
Speaker 6: at cousins, first cousin, second cousins, that are, you know,
Speaker 6: they they begin with a much greater start in life.
Speaker 1: But not Andrew Borden. He was essentially a self made man.
Speaker 6: It's this weird combination where on the on the one hand,
Speaker 6: you sort of need the Yankee name to get in
Speaker 6: to be a possible player, but it doesn't count for
Speaker 6: that much without the money that goes with it.
Speaker 1: And now back to the other Burdens. Eliza and Lodwick
Speaker 1: came from the same family lines.
Speaker 2: Eliza and Lodwig were both descended from Martha Earl, which
Speaker 2: which was Sarah Earl's sister. Ludwig was also descended from
Speaker 2: Sarah Earl, and she was his great great great grandmother.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of history and a lot of intermingling.
Speaker 1: Local historian Jeff Balanger and Carrie Nolty talk about Lodwig's
Speaker 1: early marriage. He might have had the Bordon name, but
Speaker 1: he didn't have it easy.
Speaker 8: His bad luck started much earlier. So Eliza was not
Speaker 8: his first wife. Eliza was his second wife. His first
Speaker 8: wife died. They married in eighteen thirty three, Maria Maria Briggs.
Speaker 8: They had two children, both died in infancy.
Speaker 1: Maria Briggs was likely related to John Briggs remember him
Speaker 1: from last season. He was Rebecca Briggs. Cornell's brother, John
Speaker 1: Briggs was one of the founders of Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
Speaker 1: He was also the reason that Thomas Cornell Junior was
Speaker 1: first under suspicion for murdering his mother John Briggs and
Speaker 1: his ghostly dream. Now on to Eliza Darling Borden's personal history,
Speaker 1: Ashley Beiliro says that there aren't that many details to discover.
Speaker 1: I had done some research.
Speaker 9: Also, there's so little information about Eliza Liza there is.
Speaker 3: There's so little that I have found.
Speaker 9: I mean, obviously, if you're digging in you know the
Speaker 9: genealogy of it, you're going to come across.
Speaker 1: More luckily descendant. Carrie Nolty has done a lot of
Speaker 1: genealogy research on Eliza Darling bordon.
Speaker 2: So Eliza was born in eighteen eleven and she was
Speaker 2: the second girl and third child of a George Smith
Speaker 2: Hathaway and a Eliza Commoner Lions. And the interesting thing
Speaker 2: about George and Eliza it seems that George was born
Speaker 2: in Massachusetts in this area and then went to go
Speaker 2: get some work or perhaps was on a boat as
Speaker 2: a shipmate and was in New York City, where he
Speaker 2: met Eliza, and then they got married.
Speaker 1: George needed to support his new wife, so we went
Speaker 1: on the hunt for a job.
Speaker 2: George seemed to work at least part time as a
Speaker 2: person on a whaling boat. We have a record of
Speaker 2: him in eighteen eighteen sailing out on a whaling boat
Speaker 2: and returning in December of eighteen twenty.
Speaker 1: That was the life of a man on a whaling boat,
Speaker 1: leaving for two years or more and returning to a
Speaker 1: growing family if he returned at all. Whaling was very
Speaker 1: dangerous and many men perished at sea along with their crews.
Speaker 1: I love sea stories, especially those set in the late
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, when so many men
Speaker 1: left home to toil on the deck of a boat.
Speaker 1: Life on a whaling ship was isolated, just a ship
Speaker 1: full of men. Sometimes the captain's wife and children would
Speaker 1: join the crew on longer va voyages just to keep
Speaker 1: the family together. But this was a dangerous trip. Food
Speaker 1: and water would often go bad, the men would break
Speaker 1: out into fights because of the close quarters. Men of
Speaker 1: all ranks and races face danger from illness, injury, shipwrecks, drowning,
Speaker 1: even piracy there was an incredible amount of danger. When
Speaker 1: the crew would spot a whale, the sighting would lift
Speaker 1: their spirits for a little bit. The men would rush
Speaker 1: to catch the whale and then kill it and soon
Speaker 1: process it. Here's something about the history of whaling from
Speaker 1: the National Park Service. It describes exactly how George Hathaway
Speaker 1: made money. Whaling was said to be good money, but
Speaker 1: sailors quickly discovered the truth. They were paid not by
Speaker 1: a wage, but by a share of the profits. A
Speaker 1: low ranking sailor might get a half a percent of
Speaker 1: the final take or profit. However, the take was determined
Speaker 1: by the ship's owner, who deducted for the cost of
Speaker 1: the voyage. Many men got paid in advance in order
Speaker 1: to send money home to their families. Whalemen had to
Speaker 1: pay a share of the ship's provisions too. Any additional
Speaker 1: supplies that they needed bandages, medication, clothing, soap, tobacco had
Speaker 1: to be bought from the slop chest or the company store.
Speaker 1: If whalemen bought too many items or took too many advances,
Speaker 1: they might exceed their take and end up owing money
Speaker 1: at the end of the voyage. One of my earlier
Speaker 1: seasons of tenfold was set in Ramsa's Past, Texas. It
Speaker 1: was about the death of a young woman who was
Speaker 1: found buried on the beach. In order to build a
Speaker 1: profile of the town in the nineteen thirties, I interviewed
Speaker 1: the captain of a massive shrimp boat in the Gulf
Speaker 1: that would be out to sea for two or three months.
Speaker 1: He said that oftentimes the best crew members were people
Speaker 1: who had been incarcerated, because living in such quarters could
Speaker 1: be maddening. That was the life that Eliza Borden's father
Speaker 1: lived in the early eighteen hundreds. Carrie Nolty found a
Speaker 1: lot of that information in George Smith Hathaway's will. Interesting
Speaker 1: a few more details about Eliza's father.
Speaker 2: Oh, one thing I can say is that the name
Speaker 2: of the vessel that George Smith Hathaway sailed on in
Speaker 2: eighteen eighteen was the Independence, and we know that his
Speaker 2: age was thirty one.
Speaker 3: He had light skin and brown hair.
Speaker 1: I know that doesn't sound very specific, but when you
Speaker 1: do research in the eighteen hundreds, you often take what
Speaker 1: you can get. The new Bedford Whaling Museum retains a
Speaker 1: list of whaling crews, and George is listed as one
Speaker 1: of about twenty men who served on the crew. He
Speaker 1: was the oldest at thirty one, along with a few others.
Speaker 1: The listing also says that George lived in fair Haven, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: I asked Carrie about Eliza Hathaway's siblings.
Speaker 2: There were a total of four or five children in
Speaker 2: Eliza's family, and unfortunately, her mother died when she was
Speaker 2: fairly young.
Speaker 1: Carrie says that Eliza Hathaway's mother died in eighteen twenty two,
Speaker 1: when Eliza was a child. That also wasn't unusual.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Eliza's mother, Eliza Lyon, died in eighteen twenty two
Speaker 2: when she was only eleven years old, and her father,
Speaker 2: we assume was on a.
Speaker 3: Ship standing elsewhere.
Speaker 2: Incidentally, we also found that in I want to say
Speaker 2: eighteen twenty or so, we have a record of him
Speaker 2: marrying another woman in Wales, Pembroke, Wales. So we don't
Speaker 2: know if Eliza and her siblings or any of George's
Speaker 2: family ever knew about that, what that might have done
Speaker 2: to them, but he's certainly had children with this other woman,
Speaker 2: and he himself died in eighteen thirty.
Speaker 1: Her mother and father were gone, and then there was
Speaker 1: more dying in Eliza's immediate family. I know I said
Speaker 1: that wasn't unusual in the eighteen hundreds, but this seemed
Speaker 1: to be one tragedy after another.
Speaker 2: We do know that in her father's family, along with
Speaker 2: her mother dying in eighteen twenty two, she had six
Speaker 2: aunts and uncles also die in the span of about
Speaker 2: a decade, so it was a rapid succession. Her uncle
Speaker 2: Humphrey died in eighteen twenty one, her uncle Jethro died
Speaker 2: in eighteen twenty four. Her uncle Stephen died also in
Speaker 2: eighteen twenty four. Her aunt Alice also died in eighteen
Speaker 2: twenty four. Hepsiba died in eighteen thirty, and Rebecca also
Speaker 2: died in eighteen thirty. Her grandfather, Stephen, George's father, also
Speaker 2: died in eighteen twenty five, and her grandmother, George's his mother,
Speaker 2: died in eighteen thirty one.
Speaker 6: Low Us.
Speaker 1: By the time Eliza Hathaway was in her late teens,
Speaker 1: she was alone and she knew that she needed to
Speaker 1: find a husband. As sad as that sounds, this was
Speaker 1: just before the mills and factories really began flourishing in
Speaker 1: New England. Women could gain a measure of independence as
Speaker 1: mill workers, but before then there were few options. Often
Speaker 1: they toiled on family farms, or they were employed as
Speaker 1: domestic workers for wealthier families. Women were expected to marry
Speaker 1: up if possible. Finding a husband would have been expected
Speaker 1: of Eliza because she was a woman from an upstanding
Speaker 1: family in Rhode Island, so she found one a man
Speaker 1: who seemed to have a promising future. She was nineteen
Speaker 1: and eighteen thirty when she married a miller named Silas Darling.
Speaker 1: He was four years older than she was, and Eliza
Speaker 1: Hathaway became Eliza Darling. They had two sons, William, the
Speaker 1: boy from the Fire, and his little brother, George Washington Darling.
Speaker 1: They were born within five years of the marriage, but sadly,
Speaker 1: George died when he was young, about five years old.
Speaker 1: That wasn't very unusual because there were various diseases that
Speaker 1: threatened the very young and the very old. We don't
Speaker 1: know a lot about Silas or his marriage to Eliza. Again,
Speaker 1: there's a lack of records from the early eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Welcome to my world. I asked Carrie Nolty what she knew.
Speaker 1: We have any idea how many years it was.
Speaker 3: That they were married.
Speaker 2: They were married under ten years, so they did get
Speaker 2: married when she was about twenty years old. They had
Speaker 2: two children, one of whom died early. So this is
Speaker 2: both grandparents died, her son died, six aunts and uncles died,
Speaker 2: her mother died, and her father died.
Speaker 3: This is in a ten year period.
Speaker 1: And this is all in Fall River.
Speaker 3: This is all in Fall River.
Speaker 1: All that must have been traumatizing, especially losing her youngest son,
Speaker 1: George so early. But the tragedies didn't stop there for Eliza.
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty, her husband Silas died at the age
Speaker 1: of thirty three. We don't know how, and Eliza was
Speaker 1: left with seven year old William to raise on her own.
Speaker 1: Silas died in test state, which means he didn't have
Speaker 1: a will. I always find historical documents about wills interesting.
Speaker 1: Here's a bit about the details of Silas's estate. The
Speaker 1: details of the probate were published on December twenty first,
Speaker 1: eighteen forty, and it explains what Eliza had to file
Speaker 1: in order to receive money after her husband's death to
Speaker 1: the Honorable Oliver Prescott Esquire, Judge of Probate in and
Speaker 1: of the County of Bristol. This may certify that I
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Darling am the wife of Silas J. Darling, late
Speaker 1: of Fall River, deceased, and that your Honor would appoint
Speaker 1: Seth Darling of Fall River in said county and Bristol
Speaker 1: Administrator to settle the estate of my said husband, Silas J. Darling,
Speaker 1: signed Eliza Darling. In February eighteen forty one, Judge Prescott
Speaker 1: signed an order granting Elizabeth one hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 1: out of the personal estate. Seth Darling was Eliza's father
Speaker 1: in law. Making him executor made sense because he was
Speaker 1: Silas's father and a justice of the peace. So one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars in eighteen forty is about five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in today's money. It wasn't much. Miller's had
Speaker 1: humble incomes, so in eighteen forty Eliza had to start over,
Speaker 1: and she did with a local Fall River man. Sometime
Speaker 1: between eighteen forty and eighteen forty three, Lodwick Borden courted
Speaker 1: Eliza and they married when she was thirty two. This
Speaker 1: was such an interesting time period in Fall River because
Speaker 1: the economy was strong for many people there, especially the Bordens,
Speaker 1: including Lodwick.
Speaker 2: So this is in the boom of the Industrial Revolution.
Speaker 2: Fall River was a milltown, a port. It had a
Speaker 2: thriving business. It was right next to the center of
Speaker 2: whaling in New England. New Bedford.
Speaker 1: Carrie says that money was coming in hot and fast,
Speaker 1: and everything seemed to be going well.
Speaker 2: But as you do in the nineteenth century, there was
Speaker 2: a lot of death that came along with that, and
Speaker 2: that was just because of hygiene standards, epidemics. People didn't
Speaker 2: know how to treat. People would just die sometimes accidents
Speaker 2: doing dangerous activities. Whaling was incredibly dangerous, and working in
Speaker 2: the mills was really not that much better.
Speaker 1: And one year after the Great Fire of eighteen forty three,
Speaker 1: the Burdens began having babies. Lodwick had gotten Eliza pregnant
Speaker 1: three times very quickly, once in eighteen forty four, then
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty six, and finally again in eighteen forty seven.
Speaker 1: And remember she had given birth twice before in her
Speaker 1: previous marriage, at least twice that we know of.
Speaker 2: And then Eliza gets pregnant, and then she gets pregnant again,
Speaker 2: and then she gets pregnant again, and we don't know
Speaker 2: if there are any miscarriages in between.
Speaker 3: Any of those.
Speaker 1: Is Ludwick significantly older than Eliza.
Speaker 2: Now at this point, he's in his late thirties, like
Speaker 2: maybe in his early forties. It's pretty normal for this
Speaker 2: time period. And actually even this, you know nowadays, it
Speaker 2: wouldn't be looked askance if someone in his late thirties
Speaker 2: married somebody in their early thirties.
Speaker 8: Do you have a.
Speaker 1: Sense for what love what was his personality like? Because
Speaker 1: we have a great sense of andrew personality.
Speaker 3: I it's unclear.
Speaker 1: We do know a lot about Ludwick's nephew, Andrew, because
Speaker 1: he would eventually become one of the most famous murder
Speaker 1: victims in history. Author Kara Robertson says that Andrew was
Speaker 1: stubborn and stingy, and likely not a very affectionate father.
Speaker 1: The Burdons were staples in Fall River. Our Warden tour
Speaker 1: guide Ashley says that Andrew and his second wife had
Speaker 1: not yet moved into the house next door to Lodwick
Speaker 1: and Eliza, so.
Speaker 9: Andrew Borden didn't move into that house until eighteen seventy two.
Speaker 9: Before that, it was built in eighteen forty five for
Speaker 9: a Charles Trafton, but before eighteen forty five I'm pretty
Speaker 9: sure it was just an open lot.
Speaker 3: I don't think there was anything there.
Speaker 1: Eliza Darling Borden was overwhelmed in eighteen forty eight. She
Speaker 1: had three babies, all under the age of four. She
Speaker 1: had a fifteen year old son and a husband who
Speaker 1: was likely away a lot. There was tremendous stress from
Speaker 1: the fire. If her son William had been involved, there
Speaker 1: might have been tremendous guilt. Issa began to seem fragile,
Speaker 1: unable to cope at times. Living in the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: was very trying. Having children so close together was very trying,
Speaker 1: and being a Borden was not easy. This area is haunted,
Speaker 1: I'm sure of it. New England ghost expert Jeff Balanger agrees,
Speaker 1: and he knows why.
Speaker 8: Curses are everywhere first of all, But I think New
Speaker 8: England has a culture of preservation with our history. When
Speaker 8: you drive down our main streets, it looks like it
Speaker 8: did two hundred years ago, except there's like a few
Speaker 8: less Dunkin Donuts now just a couple less. But you know,
Speaker 8: there's towns where you're not allowed to paint your house
Speaker 8: on main street unless it's approved. The colors approved by
Speaker 8: the town so we preserve. We also hibernate in the winter,
Speaker 8: and that hibernation lends us to sharing stories and talking
Speaker 8: about things, gossiping and so on.
Speaker 1: Jeff jokes that some Southerners think some Northerners are a
Speaker 1: little cold and too practical. He disagrees.
Speaker 8: When I go to like La and someone's like, hey,
Speaker 8: let's be best friends, come over for Sunday dinner, I'm like,
Speaker 8: you could be an axe murderer. And then I'm like, well,
Speaker 8: I could be an ax murderer. What's wrong with you?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 8: And I think we're sort of slower to warm and
Speaker 8: maybe that's just our puritanical roots shining through.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, now we need to go over the other
Speaker 1: ghosts in full river, just the stories that we touch
Speaker 1: on this season.
Speaker 3: Okay, what's next?
Speaker 1: Morton expert Ashley Bulero lays out her spirited tour of
Speaker 1: the city.
Speaker 9: So after that, we stop pretty much across from the
Speaker 9: Government Center. It overlooks the Bragger Bridge. It was named
Speaker 9: after a Portuguese American man who died.
Speaker 3: In Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 9: But just below the brag of Bridge, in about fifty
Speaker 9: yards out there is a white and red striped lighthouse
Speaker 9: and that's called Bordon Flats. It was named after the
Speaker 9: Bordens that had numerous mills along the Tauton River. It
Speaker 9: was purchased privately in twenty ten and they turned it
Speaker 9: into an airbnb.
Speaker 1: Doesn't sound very ghosty to me an Airbnb, but Ashley
Speaker 1: says it's haunted by a pair of ghosts.
Speaker 9: There's claims that there are two ghosts there. A Captain
Speaker 9: John Paul, who was the lightkeeper from nineteen twelve to
Speaker 9: nineteen twenty seven, and a little girl by the name
Speaker 9: of Lucy. Lucy was involved in a boating accident on
Speaker 9: the Tatton River. Captain John Paul sees this happening, he
Speaker 9: attempts to save her, but unfortunately she did pass away.
Speaker 9: The Mayor of Fall River gives Captain John Paul a
Speaker 9: medal of bravery in the attempted rescue. And we feel
Speaker 9: that maybe Captain John Paul is still there because he
Speaker 9: feels obligated to continue watching over the waters of the
Speaker 9: town river. And Lucy attached to the man that tried
Speaker 9: to save her life.
Speaker 1: Another curse and another haunting connected to the Bordon family.
Speaker 1: This is the creepy and wonderful part of the story.
Speaker 9: Captain John Paul is heard whistling in the living quarters,
Speaker 9: and Lucy is heard singing nursery rhymes throughout the lighthouse.
Speaker 1: Back to Eliza Darling Borden and her husband Lodwick. I
Speaker 1: asked Carrie Nolty about the family dynamic in eighteen forty
Speaker 1: eight years after the Great Fire, when tragedy strikes the
Speaker 1: burdens again.
Speaker 9: Okay, and she had a three year old, two year
Speaker 9: old in a sixty to nine month old.
Speaker 3: Yes, do we know.
Speaker 6: Anything about what happened in the days? Well what Ladwick.
Speaker 2: Ludwick worked as a miller in what we think is
Speaker 2: a lumber yard, which would have been one of the
Speaker 2: bigger employers in the area because of the shipbuilding and
Speaker 2: the boom in factory building that was going on in
Speaker 2: Massachusetts at that time.
Speaker 3: So he must have been just insanely busy, and.
Speaker 1: Being a miller was often dangerous exhausting work. The job
Speaker 1: was extremely physically demanding and it took a toll on
Speaker 1: the miller's body. They had to carry heavy sacks of
Speaker 1: grain up and downstairs to grind, oftentimes for flour. They
Speaker 1: also had to maintain all the mills machinery by hand.
Speaker 1: Lodwick likely worked very long hours for probably not a
Speaker 1: lot of money, particularly compared to his wealthy nephew Andrew
Speaker 1: a few decades later. So we've heard a lot that
Speaker 1: Lizzie Bourne's father, Andrew was wealthy, even though he didn't
Speaker 1: display that wealth. That was not the case for the Burdens.
Speaker 3: That preceded him. Now, they were working class people.
Speaker 2: They were just out there trying to scratch a living out.
Speaker 2: They Andrew, Lizzie's father, ended up making some shrewd investments
Speaker 2: early on in his career, but then he hoarded the
Speaker 2: money for lack of a better term, he really didn't
Speaker 2: spend it on very much.
Speaker 1: Except that Andrew Borden did value appearance, even the appearance
Speaker 1: of his two daughters.
Speaker 2: It says something about Andrew that he liked appearances because
Speaker 2: his daughters would be seen in that. But they didn't
Speaker 2: have indoor plumbing, they didn't have gas lighting, and you know,
Speaker 2: they still had to use an outhouse and bring in water,
Speaker 2: and they lived in a house that was converted from
Speaker 2: a boarding house, so it was in a working neighborhood.
Speaker 2: It was hardly luxurious, hardly befitting what I'm sure his
Speaker 2: daughters thought they deserved and what they wanted.
Speaker 1: Ashley Carrie and I talk about the histories of these homes.
Speaker 9: These are the only two houses on the street that
Speaker 9: date back to the murders and even longer.
Speaker 1: Carrie says that in eighteen forty eight, Eliza and Ludwick
Speaker 1: were living in their own home when work began construction
Speaker 1: on that boarding house that would eventually belong to Andrew Borden.
Speaker 2: Eighteen forty eight would have been right about the time
Speaker 2: that that house was built, and it was built by
Speaker 2: a Charles Trafton as a rooming house, so the house
Speaker 2: was divided into compartments, which.
Speaker 3: Makes it sort of maze like.
Speaker 2: And next door Lodwick owned that house next door. It
Speaker 2: was a little cape style house and he lived there
Speaker 2: with his second wife, Eliza, and her son William Wallace
Speaker 2: and their three children.
Speaker 3: In eighteen forty eight.
Speaker 1: Ludwick's job at the mill meant that Eliza was often
Speaker 1: left alone with their three young children and fifteen year
Speaker 1: old William. But remember Eliza must have understood that because
Speaker 1: her father, George, had been away at sea for much
Speaker 1: of her childhood. Even after her mother died after her
Speaker 1: third child, Eliza had grown increased, depressed, incredibly sad, much
Speaker 1: more than just the baby blues.
Speaker 9: Eliza Darling had three children back to back to back,
Speaker 9: and she was suffering from what we know now today
Speaker 9: as postpartum depression, and I think it took a big
Speaker 9: toll on her. And women back then weren't really allowed
Speaker 9: to talk about mental health. They probably would have been
Speaker 9: thrown into an institution if they mentioned, like, oh, I
Speaker 9: feel a certain way.
Speaker 1: Eliza appeared to be very religious, which will come into
Speaker 1: place soon. I asked Carrie about where this might have
Speaker 1: come from Eliza's religious beliefs before she married Ludwick. Carrie
Speaker 1: says that it's mostly a mystery, except that a clue
Speaker 1: might be found in Eliza's childhood.
Speaker 2: She was, like many young women, unfortunate in the fact
Speaker 2: that her parents, her mother died quite young, and we
Speaker 2: can only guess at where she ended up from that.
Speaker 2: We do know that New Bedford, where she grew up,
Speaker 2: that area of Massachusetts was undergoing a huge boom, and
Speaker 2: the United States itself was really transforming. There was a
Speaker 2: lot of religious fervor. The second grade Awakening was happening
Speaker 2: at the same time.
Speaker 1: In our next episode, we'll untangle this story, the story
Speaker 1: behind the tragedy of the Borden family. Eliza Hathaway Darling
Speaker 1: Borden is trapped at home. We don't know what her
Speaker 1: marriage to Lodwick is like, but he's likely gone a
Speaker 1: lot of the time. She's suffering from what was clearly
Speaker 1: postpartum depression, and now she's starting to say some concerning things.
Speaker 2: In May of eighteen forty eight, she had been expressing
Speaker 2: fears that everything was going to come crashing down around them,
Speaker 2: that they were going to be found in dire circumstances,
Speaker 2: even though the boom was happening and her husband wasn't
Speaker 2: good circumstance.
Speaker 1: What would happen to Eliza Borden this particular case, like
Speaker 1: most of the ones we've explored on Tinfold More Wicked,
Speaker 1: isn't open and shut. On the next episode of Tenfold
Speaker 1: War Wicked on exactly right.
Speaker 6: You know, there wasn't There wasn't any other or sinister explanation.
Speaker 6: It was seen as a family tragedy, and Lodowick had
Speaker 6: had more ordinary tragedies before he'd lost his first wife
Speaker 6: and children.
Speaker 10: But the big X factor that has been really ignored
Speaker 10: up until very recently, and We're only just scratching the surface. Now,
Speaker 10: is this massive chemistry that has shifted in the brain
Speaker 10: that in this particular woman has created depression.
Speaker 2: And the man's word was law, So just by virtue
Speaker 2: of custom, it was going to be an unequal situation.
Speaker 3: If you get a man in that kind.
Speaker 11: Of a situation who is brusque, who is uncaring, unfeeling,
Speaker 11: maybe manipulative or violent, that can be a recipe for
Speaker 11: disaster and you have almost no recourse because divorce is
Speaker 11: still shameful.
Speaker 1: If you love true crime, check out my books American
Speaker 1: Sherlock and All That Is Wicked. I also have an
Speaker 1: audio book called The Ghost Club. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: tell you the real story about the world's most famous
Speaker 1: ghost hunter, who was the head of the world's most
Speaker 1: famous ghost club, and how he investigated England's most famous
Speaker 1: haunted house. This has been an exactly right tenfold more
Speaker 1: media production producer Jason Whaling, Senior producer Alexis m Rossi,
Speaker 1: consulting producer Kyle Ryan, sound designer Eric Friend, composer Curtis Heath,
Speaker 1: additional music Jeremy Buller, artwork Nick Toga. Executive producers Georgia Hartstark,
Speaker 1: Karen Kelgarriff and Danielle Kramer.