SUPER RARE - Lizzie Borden's Dr & Key Murder Witness Autograph

Description: VERY RARE Autograph Lizzie Borden's Neighbor and Doctor FIRST Person to Examine Bodies KEY Trial Witness to Murders Dr. Seabury W. Bowen Signed album page when he taught at Oread 1864 For offer, a nice old piece of ephemera! Fresh from a prominent estate. Never offered on the market until now. Vintage, Old, Original, Antique, NOT a Reproduction - Guaranteed !! This recently discovered autograph came from a collection of autographs (album) from a student who attended Oread Institute in Worcester, Mass, in 1864. Signed - S.W. Bowen, Attleborough, Massachusetts, Oread, March 28, 1864. At side is written "Brown Class of '64" Dr. Bowen recently graduated from Brown and started teaching at Oread. Dr. Seabury Warren Bowen (1840-1918) was the Borden family's physician, living across the street from them for twenty years. He was the first medical person to examine Andrew Borden's body after his death, and the first man to arrive on the scene after Lizzie had raised the alarm. Dr. Bowen's involvement on the crime scene, his familiarity with the Bordens and the events leading up to the murders, his medical treatment of Lizzie in the aftermath of the tragedy, and his professional relationship with the citizens of the city, all made him a very key character in the tragedy. I guarantee the authenticity of this item 100%. Please feel free to ask any questions. In very good to excellent condition. Please see photos. If you collect 19th century Americana history, American murders / crime, etc. this is a treasure you will not see again! Add this to your image or paper / ephemera collection. Important genealogy research importance too. Combine shipping on multiple bid wins! 3195 Lizzie Andrew Borden (July 19, 1860 – June 1, 1927) was an American woman who was tried and acquitted of the August 4, 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts.[1] No one else was charged in the murders, and, despite ostracism from other residents, Borden spent the remainder of her life in Fall River. She died of pneumonia at the age of 66, just days before the death of her older sister, Emma. The Borden murders and trial received widespread publicity throughout the United States and, along with Borden herself, they remain a topic in American popular culture to the present day. They have been depicted in numerous films, theatrical productions, literary works, and folk rhymes that are still very well-known in the Fall River area.[2] Early life The Borden house at 92 Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts41.6989°N 71.1562°WLizzie Andrew Borden[a] was born July 19, 1860,[4] in Fall River, Massachusetts, to Sarah Anthony Borden (née Morse; 1823–1863)[5] and Andrew Jackson Borden (1822–1892).[6] Her father, who was of English and Welsh descent,[7] grew up in very modest surroundings and struggled financially as a young man, despite being the descendant of wealthy and influential local residents. Andrew eventually prospered in the manufacture and sale of furniture and caskets, then became a successful property developer. He was a director of several textile mills and owned considerable commercial property. He was also president of the Union Savings Bank and a director of the Durfee Safe Deposit and Trust Co.[8] At his death, his estate was valued at $300,000 ($10,146,890 in 2023).[9][10] Despite his wealth, Andrew was known for his frugality. For instance, the Borden residence lacked indoor plumbing even though, at the time, it was a common accommodation for the wealthy.[11] The house stood in an affluent area, but the wealthiest residents of Fall River, including Andrew's cousins, generally lived in the more fashionable neighborhood, "The Hill", which was farther from the industrial areas of the city.[9][12] Lizzie and her older sister, Emma Lenora Borden (1851–1927),[13] had a relatively religious upbringing and attended Central Congregational Church.[14] As a young woman, Lizzie was very involved in church activities, including teaching Sunday school to children of recent immigrants to the United States. She was involved in religious organizations, such as the Christian Endeavor Society, for which she served as secretary-treasurer,[15] and contemporary social movements, such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.[16] She was also a member of the Ladies' Fruit and Flower Mission.[15] Three years after the death of Lizzie's mother, Andrew married Abby Durfee Gray (1828–1892). Lizzie later stated that she called her stepmother "Mrs. Borden" and demurred on whether they had a cordial relationship; she believed that Abby had married her father for his wealth.[17] Bridget Sullivan (whom they called Maggie), the Bordens' 25-year-old live-in maid, who had immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland,[18] testified that Lizzie and Emma rarely ate meals with their parents.[19] In May 1892, Andrew killed multiple pigeons in his barn with a hatchet, believing they were attracting local children to hunt them.[20] Lizzie had recently built a roost for the pigeons, and it has been commonly recounted that she was upset over his killing of them, though the veracity of this has been disputed.[b] A family argument in July 1892 prompted both sisters to take extended "vacations" in New Bedford. After returning to Fall River, a week before the murders, Lizzie chose to stay in a local rooming house for four days before returning to the Borden residence.[21] Tension had been growing within the Borden family in the months before the murders, especially over Andrew's gifts of real estate to various branches of Abby's family. After their stepmother's sister received a house, the sisters demanded and received a rental property, the home they had lived in until their mother died, which they purchased from their father for $1. A few weeks before the murders, they sold the property back to their father for $5,000 ($170,993 in 2023). The night before the murders, John Vinnicum Morse, Lizzie and Emma's maternal uncle, visited and was invited to stay for a few days to discuss business matters with Andrew, leading to speculation that their conversation, particularly about property transfer, may have aggravated an already tense situation. For several days before the murders, the entire household had been violently ill. A family friend later speculated that mutton left on the stove to use in meals over several days was the cause. Abby had feared poison, given that Andrew had not been a popular man in Fall River.[22] Murders of Andrew and AbbyThursday, August 4, 1892Woman lying on floor next to bedAbby Borden's bodyMan lying on a sofaAndrew Borden's bodyMorse arrived in the evening of August 3 and slept in the guest room that night. After breakfast the next morning, at which Andrew, Abby, Morse, and Sullivan were present, Andrew and Morse went to the sitting room, where they chatted for nearly an hour. Morse left around 8:48 am to buy a pair of oxen and visit his niece in Fall River, planning to return to the Borden home for lunch at noon.[23] Andrew left for his morning walk some time after 9 am.[24] Although the cleaning of the guest room was one of Lizzie and Emma's regular chores, Abby went upstairs some time between 9:00 am and 10:30 am to make the bed.[25] According to the forensic investigation, Abby was facing her killer at the time of the attack.[26] She was first struck on the side of the head with a hatchet, which cut her just above the ear, causing her to turn and fall face down on the floor, creating contusions on her nose and forehead.[27] Her killer then struck her multiple times, delivering seventeen more direct hits to the back of her head, killing her.[26] When Andrew returned at around 10:30 am, his key failed to open the door, so he knocked. Sullivan went to unlock the door; finding it jammed, she uttered a curse.[28] She would later testify that she heard Lizzie laughing immediately after this; she did not see Lizzie, but stated that the laughter was coming from the top of the stairs.[28] This was considered significant as Abby was already dead by this time, and her body would have been visible to anyone on the home's second floor.[28] Lizzie later denied being upstairs and testified that her father had asked her where Abby was, to which she replied that a messenger had delivered Abby a summons to visit a sick friend.[29] Sullivan stated that she had then removed Andrew's boots and helped him into his slippers before he lay down on the sofa for a nap, a detail contradicted by the crime-scene photos, which show Andrew wearing boots.[30] She testified that she was in her third-floor room, resting from cleaning windows, when just before 11:10 am she heard Lizzie call from downstairs, "Maggie, come quick! Father's dead. Somebody came in and killed him."[12][31] Andrew was slumped on a couch in the downstairs sitting room, struck ten or eleven times with a hatchet-like weapon.[16] One of his eyes had been split cleanly in two, suggesting that he had been asleep when attacked.[32][33] His still-bleeding wounds suggested a very recent attack.[34] Dr. Bowen, the family's physician, arrived from his home across the street and pronounced both victims dead.[35] Detectives estimated that Andrew's death had occurred at approximately 11:00 am.[36] InvestigationLizzie's initial answers to the police officers' questions were at times strange and contradictory.[37] Initially she reported hearing a groan, or a scraping noise or a distress call, before entering the house.[38] Two hours later she told police she had heard nothing and entered the house not realizing that anything was wrong. When asked where her stepmother was, she recounted Abby receiving a note asking her to visit a sick friend. She also stated that she thought Abby had returned and asked if someone could go upstairs and look for her. Sullivan and a neighbor, Mrs. Churchill, were half-way up the stairs, their eyes level with the floor, when they looked into the guest room and saw Abby lying face down on the floor. Most of the officers who interviewed Lizzie reported that they disliked her "attitude"; some said she was too calm and poised. Despite her behavior and changing alibis, she was not checked for bloodstains. Police did search her room, but it was a cursory inspection; at the trial they admitted to not doing a proper search because Lizzie was not feeling well. They were subsequently criticized for their lack of diligence.[39] In the basement, police found two hatchets, two axes, and a hatchet-head with a broken handle.[40] The hatchet-head was suspected of being the murder weapon as the break in the handle appeared fresh and the ash and dust on the head, unlike that on the other bladed tools, appeared to have been deliberately applied to make it look as if it had been in the basement for some time.[41][42] However, none of these tools were removed from the house.[39] Because of the mysterious illness that had stricken the household before the murders, the family's milk and the victims' stomachs (removed during autopsies performed in the Borden dining room) were tested for poison;[43] none was found.[44] Residents suspected Lizzie of purchasing "hydrocyanic acid in a diluted form" from the local druggist.[45] Her defense was that she inquired about the acid in order to clean her furs, despite the local medical examiner's testimony that it did not have antiseptic properties. Lizzie and Emma's friend, Alice Russell, decided to stay with the sisters the night following the murders while Morse spent the night in the attic guest room, contrary to later accounts that he slept in the murder-site guest room.[citation needed] Police were stationed around the house on the night of August 4, during which an officer said he had seen Lizzie enter the cellar with Russell, carrying a kerosene lamp and a slop pail.[46] He stated he saw both women exit the cellar, after which Lizzie returned alone; though he was unable to see what she was doing, he stated it appeared she was bent over the sink.[46] On August 5, Morse left the Borden residence and was mobbed by hundreds of people; police had to escort him back to the house. The following day, police conducted a more thorough search of the house, inspecting the sisters' clothing and confiscating the broken-handled hatchet head. That evening a police officer and the mayor visited the house, and Lizzie was informed that she was a suspect in the murders. The next morning, Russell entered the kitchen to find Borden tearing up a dress. She explained that she was planning to put it on the fire because it was covered in paint. It was never determined whether it was the dress she had been wearing on the day of the murders.[39] InquestLizzie appeared at the inquest hearing on August 8. Her request to have her family attorney present was refused under a state statute providing that an inquest must be held in private. She had been prescribed regular doses of morphine to calm her nerves, and it is possible that her testimony was affected by this. Her behavior was erratic, and she often refused to answer a question even if the answer would be beneficial to her. She often contradicted herself and provided alternating accounts of the morning in question, such as saying she was in the kitchen reading a magazine when her father arrived home, then saying she was in the dining room doing some ironing, and then saying she was coming down the stairs.[47][48] The district attorney was very aggressive and confrontational. On August 11, Lizzie was served with a warrant of arrest and jailed. The inquest testimony, the basis for the modern debate regarding Lizzie's guilt or innocence, was later ruled inadmissible at her trial in June 1893.[39][49] Contemporaneous newspaper articles noted that Lizzie possessed a "stolid demeanor"[50] and "bit her lips, flushed, and bent toward attorney Adams;" it was also reported that the testimony provided in the inquest had "caused a change of opinion among her friends who have heretofore strongly maintained her innocence."[51] The inquest received significant press attention nationwide, including an extensive three-page write-up in The Boston Globe.[52] A grand jury began hearing evidence on November 7, and Borden was indicted on December 2.[50][53] Trial and acquittal Lizzie Borden during the trial, by Benjamin West ClinedinstLizzie's trial took place in New Bedford starting on June 5, 1893.[54] Prosecuting attorneys were Hosea M. Knowlton and future United States Supreme Court Justice William H. Moody; defending were Andrew V. Jennings,[55] Melvin O. Adams, and former Massachusetts governor George D. Robinson.[56] Five days before the trial's commencement, on June 1, another axe murder occurred in Fall River. This time the victim was Bertha Manchester, who was found hacked to death in her kitchen.[57] The similarities between the Manchester and Borden murders were striking and noted by jurors.[57] Jose Correa de Mello, a Portuguese immigrant, was later convicted of Manchester's murder in 1894, and was determined not to have been in the vicinity of Fall River at the time of the Borden murders.[58] A prominent point of discussion in the trial, and press coverage of it, was the hatchet-head found in the basement, which was not convincingly demonstrated by the prosecution to be the murder weapon. Prosecutors argued that the killer had removed the handle because it would have been covered in blood.[59] One officer testified that a hatchet handle was found near the hatchet-head, but another officer contradicted this.[60] Though no bloody clothing was found at the scene, Russell testified that on August 8, 1892, she had witnessed Lizzie burn a dress in the kitchen stove, saying it had been ruined when she brushed against wet paint.[61] During the course of the trial, defense never attempted to challenge this statement.[62] The trial jury that acquitted Borden, 1893Lizzie's presence at the home was also a point of dispute during the trial; according to testimony, Sullivan entered the second floor at around 10:58 am and left Lizzie and her father downstairs.[63] Lizzie told several people that at this time, she went into the barn and was not in the house for "twenty minutes or possibly a half an hour".[64][65] Hyman Lubinsky testified for the defense that he saw Lizzie leaving the barn at 11:03 am and Charles Gardner confirmed the time.[66] At 11:10 am, Lizzie called Sullivan downstairs, told her Andrew had been murdered and ordered her not to enter the room; instead, Lizzie sent her to get a doctor.[67] Both victims' heads had been removed during autopsy,[68][69] and the skulls were admitted as evidence during the trial and presented on June 5, 1893.[70] Upon seeing them in the courtroom, Lizzie fainted.[70] Evidence was excluded that she had sought to purchase prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide), purportedly for cleaning a sealskin cloak, from the local druggist on the day before the murders. The judge ruled that the incident was too remote in time to have any connection.[71] The presiding Associate Justice, Justin Dewey, who had been appointed by Robinson when he was governor, delivered a lengthy summary that supported the defense as his charge to the jury before it was sent to deliberate on June 20, 1893.[72] After an hour and a half of deliberation, the jury acquitted Lizzie Borden of the murders.[73] Upon exiting the courthouse, she told reporters she was "the happiest woman in the world".[74] The trial has been compared to the later trials of Bruno Hauptmann, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and O.J. Simpson, as a landmark in publicity and public interest in the history of American legal proceedings.[75][76][77] Theories regarding perpetratorsLizzie BordenAlthough acquitted at trial, Lizzie remained the prime suspect in her father's and stepmother's murders. Writer Victoria Lincoln proposed in 1967 that she might have committed the murders while in a fugue state.[78] Another prominent suggestion was that she was physically and sexually abused by her father, which drove her to kill him.[79][2] There is little evidence to support this, but incest is not a topic that would have been discussed at the time, and the methods for collecting physical evidence would have been quite different in 1892.[2] This belief was intimated in local papers at the time of the murders, and was revisited by scholar Marcia Carlisle in a 1992 essay.[2] Mystery author Evan Hunter, better known as Ed McBain, in his 1984 novel Lizzie, suggested that Lizzie committed the murders after being caught in a tryst with Sullivan.[80] McBain elaborated on his speculation in a 1999 interview, speculating that Abby had caught the two together and had reacted with horror and disgust, and that Lizzie had killed Abby with a candlestick. She made a confession to Andrew when he returned home but killed him in a rage with a hatchet when he reacted exactly as Abby had. He further speculated that Sullivan disposed of the hatchet somewhere afterwards.[81] In her later years, Lizzie was rumored to be a lesbian, but there was no such speculation about Sullivan, who later married a man she met while working as a maid in Butte, Montana. Sullivan died in Butte in 1948.[82] Allegedly, she gave a death-bed confession to her sister in which she stated that she had changed her testimony on the stand in order to protect Lizzie.[83] John MorseAnother significant suspect is John Morse, Lizzie's maternal uncle, who rarely met with the family after his sister died but had slept in the house the night before the murders; according to law enforcement, he had provided an "absurdly perfect and over-detailed alibi for the death of Abby Borden".[84] Morse was considered a suspect by police for a period.[85] "William Borden"A man named William Borden, suspected to be Andrew's illegitimate son, was noted as a possible suspect by author Arnold Brown, who surmised that William had tried and failed to extort money from his alleged father.[86][87] Author Leonard Rebello, after extensive research on William, proved he was not Andrew's son.[88] Emma BordenAlthough Emma had an alibi at Fairhaven, about 15 miles (24 km) from Fall River, crime writer Frank Spiering proposed in his 1984 book Lizzie that she might have secretly visited the residence to kill her parents before returning to Fairhaven in time to receive the telegram informing her of the murders.[89] Later lifeAfter the trial, the Borden sisters moved into a large, modern house in The Hill neighborhood in Fall River. Around this time, Lizzie began using the name Lizbeth A. Borden.[54][90] At their new house, which Lizbeth dubbed "Maplecroft", they had a staff that included live-in maids, a housekeeper and a coachman. Because Abby was ruled to have died before Andrew, her estate went first to Andrew and then, at his death, passed to his daughters as part of his estate. A considerable settlement, however, was paid to settle claims by Abby's family.[54][90] Despite the acquittal, Lizzie was ostracized by Fall River society.[83] Her name was again brought into the public eye when she was accused of shoplifting in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1897.[91] In 1905, shortly after an argument over a party that Lizbeth had given for actress Nance O'Neil,[92] Emma moved out of the house and never saw her sister again.[2] DeathLizzie was ill in her last year following the removal of her gallbladder; she died of pneumonia on June 1, 1927, in Fall River at age 66. Funeral details were not published and few attended.[93] Nine days later, Emma died from chronic nephritis in a nursing home in Newmarket, New Hampshire,[91][94] having moved to this location in 1923 both for health reasons and to avoid renewed attention following the publication of another book about the murders. The Borden sisters, neither of whom had ever married, were buried side by side in the family plot in Oak Grove Cemetery.[91] At the time of her death, Borden was worth over $250,000 (equivalent to $5,652,000 in 2022).[95] She owned a house on the corner of French Street and Belmont Street, several office buildings, shares in several utilities, two cars and a large amount of jewelry.[95] She left $30,000 (equivalent to $678,000 in 2022) to the Fall River Animal Rescue League[96][95] and $500 ($11,000 in 2022) in trust for perpetual care of her father's grave. Her closest friend and a cousin each received $6,000 ($136,000 today)—substantial sums at the time of the estate's distribution in 1927[10][97]—and numerous friends and family members each received between $1,000 ($23,000 in 2022) and $5,000 ($113,000 in 2022).[95] In cultureScholar Ann Schofield notes that "Borden's story has tended to take one or the other of two fictional forms: the tragic romance and the feminist quest ... As the story of Lizzie Borden has been created and re-created through rhyme and fiction it has taken on the qualities of a popular American myth or legend that effectively links the present to the past."[98] The Borden house is now a museum, and operates a bed and breakfast with 1890s styling.[99] Pieces of evidence used in the trial, including the hatchet-head, are preserved at the Fall River Historical Society.[99] Folk rhymeThe case was memorialized in a popular skipping-rope rhyme, sung to the tune of the then-popular song "Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay."[100][101][102] Lizzie Borden took an axeand gave her mother forty whacks.When she saw what she had done,she gave her father forty-one. Folklore says that the rhyme was made up by an anonymous writer as a tune to sell newspapers. Others attribute it to the ubiquitous, but anonymous, "Mother Goose".[103] In reality, Lizzie's stepmother suffered eighteen[104] or 19[83] blows; her father suffered eleven blows. The rhyme has a less well-known second verse:[105] Andrew Borden now is dead,Lizzie hit him on the head.Up in heaven he will sing,on the gallows she will swing. DepictionsLizzie Borden has been depicted in music, radio, film, theater, and television, often in association with the murders of which she was acquitted. Among the earlier portrayals on stage was John Colton and Carleton Miles's 1933 play Nine Pine Street, in which Lillian Gish played Effie Holden, a character who is based on Borden. The play was not a success and ran for only twenty-eight performances.[106] In 1947 Lillian de la Torre wrote a one-act play, Goodbye, Miss Lizzie Borden.[106] Other retellings include New Faces of 1952, a 1952 Broadway musical with a number titled "Lizzie Borden" which depicts the crimes,[107] as well as Agnes de Mille's ballet Fall River Legend (1948) and the Jack Beeson opera Lizzie Borden (1965), both works being based on Borden and the murders of her father and stepmother.[108] Other plays based on Borden include Blood Relations (1980), a Canadian production written by Sharon Pollock that recounts events leading up to the murders, which was made into a television movie in Calgary. Lizzie Borden, another musical adaptation, was also made starring Tony nominee Alison Fraser.[109] A March 24, 1957, episode of Omnibus presented two different adaptations of the Lizzie Borden story: the first a play, "The Trial of Lizzie Borden", with Katharine Bard as Lizzie; the second a production of the Fall River Legend ballet with Nora Kaye as "The Accused". In 1959, The Legend of Lizzie by Reginald Lawrence attracted praise for Anne Meacham in the title role, but still closed after just two performances.[106] A January 21, 1956, episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, entitled “The Older Sister”, presents a fictionalized account, occurring one year after the murders, where Lizzie and Emma have a conversation revealing who the murderer was. [110] The folk singing group The Chad Mitchell Trio recorded the black comedy song "Lizzie Borden" for its live 1961 album Mighty Day on Campus. Released as a single, it reached #44 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1962.[111] ABC commissioned The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975), a television film starring Elizabeth Montgomery as Lizzie Borden, Katherine Helmond as Emma Borden, and Fionnula Flanagan as Bridget Sullivan; it was later discovered after Montgomery died that she and Borden were in fact sixth cousins once removed, both descending from 17th century Massachusetts resident John Luther. Rhonda McClure, the genealogist who documented the Montgomery-Borden connection, said: "I wonder how Elizabeth would have felt if she knew she was playing her own cousin."[112] Lifetime produced Lizzie Borden Took an Ax (2014), a speculative television film with Christina Ricci portraying Borden, which was followed by The Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015), a limited series and a sequel to the television film which presents a fictionalized account of Borden's life after the trial.[113][114] A feature film, Lizzie (2018), with Chloë Sevigny as Borden and Kristen Stewart as Bridget Sullivan, depicts a lesbian tryst between Borden and Sullivan which leads to the murders.[115] The events of the murders and the trial, with actors portraying the people who were involved in them, have been reenacted on a number of documentary programs. In 1936, the radio program Unsolved Mysteries broadcast a 15 minute dramatization titled "The Lizzie Borden Case",[116] which presented a possible scenario in which the murders were committed during a botched robbery attempt by a tramp, who then escaped. Television recreations have included episodes of Biography, Second Verdict, History's Mysteries, Case Reopened (1999), and Mysteries Decoded (2019). The Lizzie Borden case was partly dramatized on an episode of the 2022 BBC Radio podcast series Lucy Worsley's Lady Killers.[117] Lizzy Borden, an American heavy metal band, is named after her. In literatureIn Agatha Christie's mystery novel Sleeping Murder, the main character Miss Marple says that murder "was not proven in the case of Madeleine Smith and Lizzie was acquitted‍—‌but many people believe both of those women were guilty." Christie's And Then There Were None and After the Funeral also references the case."The Fall River Axe Murders", a short fiction by Angela Carter, was published in her collection Black Venus (1985).[118] "Lizzie's Tiger", also by Carter, has Borden, imagined as a four-year-old, has an extraordinary encounter at the circus. The story was posthumously in 1993 in her collection American Ghosts and Old World Wonders.[119]Miss Lizzie, a 1989 novel by Walter Satterthwait, takes place thirty years after the murders and recounts an unlikely friendship between Borden and a child, and the suspicions that arise from a murder.[120]See What I Have Done, 2017 novel by Australian writer Sarah Schmidt, tells the story of the murders and their aftermath from the points of view of Lizzie and Emma Borden, Bridget Sullivan, and an imagined stranger.[121][122] It won the MUD Literary Prize for a debut novel.[123]Erika Mailman's 2017 novel The Murderer's Maid is told from the points of view of Bridget Sullivan in 1892 and a young woman with a connection to the case in the modern day. It won a gold medal for historical fiction in the Independent Publisher Book Awards.[124]See alsoA. J. Borden BuildingCorky Row Historic DistrictList of unsolved murders Dr. Bowen was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts and graduated from Brown University, also obtaining medical degrees from University of Michigan and the Bellevue Hospital Medical College. He arrived in Fall River in the late 1860s, eventually marrying Phoebe Vincent Miller, the daughter of Southard Miller, the man who built the Borden's house at 92 Second Street. For many years, Dr. Bowen lived in a house diagonally across from the Bordens, sharing a duplex with Mr. Miller and his wife. Because of his physically proximity and his role as the Bordens' family physician, he had ample opportunity to interact with the family in both a social, as well as professional capacity. Dr. Bowen's role in the tragedy began early on the morning of Wednesday, August 3rd, when Abby Borden, feeling very ill, came across the street and knocked upon his door. Abby seemed so sick that Dr. Bowen believed she would vomit on the spot, and went to get something in which she could be sick. Abby asked him whether he thought their baker's bread could be poisoned, and Dr. Bowen responded by reminding her that if the bread had been so poisoned, more people in town would have been sick. He suggested that she take some castor oil and sent her home. However, Dr. Bowen later went to the Borden house of his own volition to see how the other members of the family were doing. Andrew, answering the door, rudely told him that he did not require his services. Presumably, Andrew thought that the bismuth powders that he was self-administering would be sufficient to calm the family's illnesses and he could thus avoid a doctor's bill. Early the next morning, Dr. Bowen, who had a carriage and a boy driver, was called away to Tiverton to see a client. Accordingly, he was not home when Bridget Sullivan came knocking on his door after the discovery of Andrew's body. Subsequently arriving home, he was confronted by his wife, who told him that he was needed at the Borden house. Fearing that the mysterious illness that plagued them the day before had grown worse, he rushed to the house, only to discover both Lizzie and Mrs. Churchill standing on the back porch. Bridget, who had run to fetch Alice Russell, had not yet returned. Dr. Bowen testified that Lizzie had said to him that her father had been "stabbed." He went to the sitting room, where he was confronted by the gruesome crime scene. The only examination he made was to check Andrew's pulse and then, satisfied that he was dead, he ordered Bridget to fetch a sheet to cover him up. Lizzie explained to him that she had been in the barn looking for some iron, and that Mrs. Borden was not at home, being that she had been called away by a note announcing that someone was sick. Lizzie then asked the doctor to telegraph her sister, who was staying with friends in Fair Haven. The doctor then left the crime scene, just as Officer Allen, the first policeman on the scene, was arriving. Dr. Bowen took his carriage to the telegraph office, where, as Lizzie had requested, he sent a telegraph to Emma. After returning to the house, Dr. Bowen was informed by Mrs. Churchill that Mrs. Borden had been found upstairs, and he climbed the front stairs to examine the body. At first, he thought that the woman had witnessed her husband's death and had then run upstairs where she had fainted. However, the doctor soon determined that she was dead. However, this did not prevent the police statements from stating that he had incompetently assumed Abby had died of fright. At the trial, Dr. Bowen staunchly denied this was the case. He had been the first person to discover that Abby had been killed by a sharp instrument, and he surmised that it was most likely the same instrument that had killed Andrew. Dr. Dolan, the City Medical Examiner, soon arrived on the scene and the two doctors went upstairs and moved the body of Abby Borden for a closer examination. It is important to note that this was performed before the arrival of the police photographer, so the positioning of the victim's feet and hands in the crime scene photos are not necessarily those of their original setting. Dr. Bowen found Lizzie downstairs in the kitchen, "being worked on" by Alice Russell and Mrs. Churchill. He suggested that she go to her room, where he administered a dose of bromo caffeine to calm her nerves; he repeated the dose an hour later. The next day, he gave her a dose of morphine, then doubled the dose on Saturday evening. Dr. Bowen continued to give Lizzie double doses of morphine through her arrest and her appearance at the inquest, a point brought out at the trial by her counsel. Obviously, her attorney sought to emphasize how Lizzie's judgment, memory, and view of things may have been altered by the drug, thereby implying that her inquest testimony, which was largely criticized for its inconsistencies and contradictions, was unreliable. In fact, Lizzie's performance at the inquest was so poor that, in a letter to Attorney General Pilsbury, Prosecutor Knowlton called Lizzie's inquest testimony a "confession". Two curious bits of testimony are related to Dr. Bowen. Alice Russell claimed that the doctor questioned Lizzie about the alleged note that Mrs. Borden had received right before her murder. He had looked in the wastebasket and asked Alice if the note was to be found in Mrs. Borden's pockets. Lizzie then agreed that the missing note must have been put into the stove to be burned. This by itself is not so remarkable, although it does seem to suggest rather convincingly that Lizzie had lied about it. However, a police statement by Officers Harrington and Dougherty states that they witnessed Dr. Bowen, in the presence of others, burning some scraps of paper in the stove. When they asked what they were, Dr. Bowen explained that they were of no consequence and that they had something to do with his daughter. One of the officers saw the word "Emma" on one of the papers, and when they looked into the top of the stove, they saw other papers that had been incompletely burned on the weak fire. This very strange statement by the officers has led to speculation about whether Dr. Seabury Bowen knew more than he was then revealing. Dr. Bowen died in 1918, after many decades of service to the Fall River community, and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery. The Oread Institute was a women's college founded in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1849 by Eli Thayer. Before its closing in 1934, it was one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States. According to the Worcester Women's History Project: "The Oread offered three levels of instruction: primary, academic and collegiate. The four-year collegiate program offered a classical, college-level curriculum and is thought to be the first institution of its kind exclusively for women in the country. It was modeled after the program at Brown University, Thayer’s alma mater".[1]Two graduates of Oread, Sophia Packard and ornamental music teacher Harriet Giles, would eventually found Spelman College, named after Oread graduate Laura Spelman Rockefeller. Laura Spelman was the future wife of John D. Rockefeller, having attended Oread while her future husband, who dropped out of Cleveland's Central High School in the 1850s, worked as a clerk.[2] Thayer constructed an enormous Gothic-style castle for his new college, complete with turrets. The college closed in 1881. From 1898 to 1904 the building was the Worcester Domestic Science Cooking School and was finally closed in 1934.[1] The institute lent its name to Mount Oread, a hill in Lawrence, Kansas, upon which the main campus of the University of Kansas is currently situated. Lawrence was founded in 1854 by settlers from Massachusetts who had been sent there by the New England Emigrant Aid Company, which was created by Eli Thayer.

Price: 7500 USD

Location: Rochester, New York

End Time: 2024-04-06T00:12:38.000Z

Shipping Cost: 28.85 USD