The Second Street Irregulars

The first inaugural meeting of the Second Street Irregulars, Fall River Chapter went off as smoothly as Lizzie’s acquittal.  114 years later the group enjoyed standing in the jury box at the County Street Court house in New Bedford.  After an extensive tour of the grand old edifice which including sitting in on two sessions in the modern chambers downstairs, the group had a tour of Fall River Borden-related sites conducted by Leonard Rebello, author of Lizzie Borden Past and Present. The tour featured a detailed account of Andrew Borden’s movements on the last morning of his life.  A banquet followed at the Abbey Grille, Lizzie’s former Rock Street Congregational Church, and an extensive tour of the church building which is now a culinary institute and popular restaurant.  Saturday’s doings included a stop at the Westport grave of Alice Russell, Lizzie’s friend who confessed to seeing Lizzie burn a dress in the Borden family kitchen stove, and Eli Bence in Fairhaven’s Riverside Cemetery. Bence was the pharmacist who identified Lizzie as the woman who tried to buy prussic acid the day before the murders.  A tour of Victorian Fairhaven was on the day’s itinerary and included a stop at the house where Lizzie’s older sister Emma was visiting on the day of the murders. The weekend included many stops to “graze” on local delicacies and a highlight was the lively round table discussion about the case in the sitting room where Mr. Borden was slaughtered. 

The Lizzie Borden Society members, which make up the “Mutton Eaters” will be on the prowl again in December at a Victorian Christmas open house in Fall River and again in May 2008 with an ambitious itinerary and schedule of re-enactments and experiments at the scene of the crime.

1893 jury in New Bedford