Local Bucket List Win: Lizzie Borden House

Been meaning to check out the Lizzie Borden House in Fall River for awhile now. I was gonna go that week I went to Plymouth, but then Mary told me she'd love to see it someday and I asked her if she wanted me to wait till her trip to the Cape and we could go together.  We asked everyone if they wanted to go with us, and the only taker was another high school pal, Michelle.   The day we went started off steamy and rainy.  Mary was afraid I'd cancel b/c of the weather, but after living in Washington for so long, I learned that if you don't go out and do stuff when it rains, you don't go out.  We all met up at the Dunkin Donuts at the Sagamore Bridge, and headed down to Fall River.

Got there early so we parked behind the Borden house, and walked around a bit to kill time before the museum opened at 11.  Fall River is, and has always been, an old, depressed textile mill town, even in the best of times.  There are signs that they are trying to spiff it up a bit, but urban decay still exists and it's a photographer's paradise.

This mural is pretty cool.

Although it looks like someone is choking the life out of Lucy.  I realize that it's supposed to be the fingers of her left hand, reaching around to the right side of her collar.

St. Mary's School.  Not sure if it's under renovation or closed or just badly run down.  And there is a person in the top left window that scared the crap out of me when they moved away from it.

This house is for sale and I have to say, houses in this style really creep me out.  It looks like it's divided into apartments now.  If I bought it, I'd covert it back to one big house and definitely paint it in blues, pinks and purples to cheer it up.

I went on the porch to take this picture and the thought crossed my mind, 'what if this rocker starts moving on its own?'  When I got back to the street, Michelle was just saying to Mary, 'it'd be creepy if that rocker started moving...'  I said to them, 'And don't think I didn't think that exact same thing...'

Another boarded up house. There's still an American flag in the top right window though.

Scofflaws!!!!

Very hard to narrow down the pictures I took for this blog.  I shot a lot of them; over 100.  Not only was photography allowed, flash was also allowed, and in fact photography is encouraged, in the hopes that an image will reveal a person's face (as seen in one they passed around), orbs, shadows, etc.  I didn't use my flash in many of the photos, on purpose because I was going for a certain mood. I will post pics of the inside of the house separately from this post.

Before I start though, I have to say that I had some problems at this place.  So did Michelle. Knowing what I do about paranormal stuff & locations, I charged my camera batteries the night before.  It had been awhile since I did it and I didn't want them to quit on me.  What happened was that the longer I was in that house, the more of a headache I got.  Michelle also experienced a headache.  As you know, Lizzie's parents had their heads shattered with an axe.  All 3 of us got the heebie jeebies, but in different rooms.  Another thing that happened was that, by the time we got to the kitchen at the end of the tour, I kept getting a weird 'settings' screen on my camera every time I turned it on.  I couldn't make it go away.  The tour guide told me to keep shooting photos b/c there could be something present.  I shot a couple more but overall my camera was struggling, and my head was throbbing.  This continued to happen for a long time, even after I got home.  I ended up having to take the batteries out and that resolved the issue.  My head continued to split all day and night and I slept at least 12 hours. Also, when I went to upload my pictures after getting home, they were all out of order on the memory card.  Then 14 photos showed up the next day when I went to upload some crafts I shot pics of.   I knew there were photos missing, but then I started to think that maybe I hadn't taken them and only thought I did.  In addition, I had to reset the date in the camera, as they were all now defaulting to January 1, 2005.  I've never had to reset the date since the day I bought the thing in 2006.  So take from that what you will.

After our walk around the block, we hung out in the back parking lot, waiting for the museum/gift shop to open so that we could buy our tickets.

We took several close up pics of the windows, hoping for a ghostly apparition but none showed up in our pictures.  We were, however, shown an undoctored photo taken by someone that very clearly showed an old woman in old fashioned clothes looking out one of the windows.

Back kitchen door to the house.

This is a replica of the original barn which stood on this spot.  Now it's the gift shop.

As we were waiting, Mary wondered aloud if the tshirts would have blood all over them.  We cackled. Then the doors were opened.  Question asked, question answered.  No I didn't get one.

Creepy bobblehead of Lizzie.  I did not buy one.

I did get this fridge magnet though!

After we left the Borden home, we went up to Oak Grove Cemetery to visit the Borden graves.  The cemetery is HUGE and very old, some dated to the early 1800s.  I could have spent hours walking and shooting in there.  I am grateful that they painted arrows to the Borden graves on the paved path!!

I just found out that gravestone rubbing is illegal in New England. So I'll have to be careful not to get caught.  ;-)

Andrew's first wife, and Lizzie's mother, died in 1863.  It was her step-mother, Abby, who was murdered with Andrew, that day.