Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I was just wandering, did lizzie really decapatate Abbys cat? Just wandering because I know she did like animals and in her will, she left a good amount of money to the animal rescue of fall river. It just seem very wierd to me that she would kill an animal, and then leave alot of money to an rescue. Is she just twisted and have a split personality or something?

I think that was probably a vicious rumor that went around about Lizzie after the murders. They wanted to believe she was capable, and anyone who could decapitate an animal could very well be capable of bashing a human skull in. In my opinion, animals were probably Lizzie's only friends as she was growing up and were probably her security and where her sense of feeling loved could flourish.

I personally think Lizzie held animals in a higher regard than humans. She probably couldn't even swat a fly...

I'm like that. I love animals more than people most of the time. I never stomp on bugs and I never swat flies. If there's a spider in the house I get it in a cup and put it outside.

Anyone who leaves THAT much money to an animal rescue society means business. She loved animals because they were all she had and all she enjoyed in her lonely life.

I think it was a rumor, too. I was just having a hard time believing that she would kill a cat even if it was Abby's.

Well, then there is the story of Lizzie trying to obtain chloroform to dispose of a cat. This story comes from a druggist who allegedly waited on Lizzie and said that she spoke to him in a rather surly manner. He answered her back in kind and she left in a huff. Don't recall if she obtained the chloroform or not?

i remember that story from the word he used. he said he answered just as "saucily." to me this is one of the funnier stories about her arrogance where she meets up with someone who doesn't care for it.

anyway, the animal-killing in such a case was not necessarily an act of cruelty, but otherwise, of mercy, in the case of an incurable suffering animal.

radin includes one of these cat stories of the mercy ilk -- she nursed back to health a cat injured at the farm.

either way, these stories come from her association with animals.

Susan @ Wed Sep 28, 2005 8:31 pm wrote:Well, then there is the story of Lizzie trying to obtain chloroform to dispose of a cat. This story comes from a druggist who allegedly waited on Lizzie and said that she spoke to him in a rather surly manner. He answered her back in kind and she left in a huff. Don't recall if she obtained the chloroform or not?

Actually, yes she did obtain the chloroform.

viewtopic.php?t=594

I think that might have been started after she got arrested. She did go into the druggist to get chloroform, but I don't ever remeber reading that she told he what it was for.
ote="Susan @ Wed Sep 28, 2005 8:31 pm"]Well, then there is the story of Lizzie trying to obtain chloroform to dispose of a cat. This story comes from a druggist who allegedly waited on Lizzie and said that she spoke to him in a rather surly manner. He answered her back in kind and she left in a huff. Don't recall if she obtained the chloroform or not? [/quote]

snokkums, that's a bit confusing there with the quotes.
The link above you is the answer.
Here's what it said:

"Nailing The Poison Story / Neither Nor Any Relatives Bought Prussic Acid at Brow's," Boston Herald, August 8, 1982: 2.

"It was claimed Lizzie made a second attempt to purchase prussic acid at Walter J. Brow's Drug Store at 62 Second Street. A Boston Herald reporter interviewed Mr. Brow to verify the rumor. Mr. Brow said Lizzie traded at his store and had known Lizzie for the past twenty years. He assured the reporter Lizzie did not purchase any prussic acid. He recalled that Lizzie stopped trading at his store about four years ago. Her last purchase was chloroform, stating she wanted it for the purpose of killing a cat. Mr. Brow states Miss Borden asked for the stuff in rather a surly manner, and he answered just as saucily. Miss Borden paid for the chloroform and went out. She has never been in the shop since."

Thank you for finding that again, Kat. Does it give any dates as to when Lizzie stopped patronizing his shop, how close it was to the murders? Maybe this is the start for "Lil Abby's" story about Lizzie beheading Abby's cat. Perhaps it was old, or just ailing and needed to be put down. Abby speaks about it at the Whitehead house about how Lizzie "killed" her cat and from there it grows into being done with an axe?

Made me wonder if Lizzie did indeed try to purchase Prussic Acid, why she just didn't go with the chloroform like John Morse had suggested? She was versed in using it and knew it was readily available.


*Is that supposed to be August 8, 1892?

Missy found the thread. It was my original transcription- so yes, it's 1892- good call!

Brow said Lizzie stopped coming to his shop 4 years before 1892- so that's 1888.
Eww..JtheR!

I can't remember off hand where I read it but I do recall reading another wild Lizzie story involving a cat. Lizzie was walking along with some guy on a farm or something like that. Anyway, this cat came up and started to rub up against her or whatever. She got annoyed with the cat and without skipping a beat she picked up the cat and hurled it some distance away. I do not know if this story is true. Anyone else recall this story?

Snookums, the story about the decapitated cat came from Abby Gran Potter, the niece of Abby Borden, who told Judge Sullivan the story when he was researching the book.

DWilly @ Fri Oct 07, 2005 6:03 am wrote:I can't remember off hand where I read it but I do recall reading another wild Lizzie story involving a cat. Lizzie was walking along with some guy on a farm or something like that. Anyway, this cat came up and started to rub up against her or whatever. She got annoyed with the cat and without skipping a beat she picked up the cat and hurled it some distance away. I do not know if this story is true. Anyone else recall this story?

I remember the story, but I can't remember which book I read it in.

Lynn

The story of the flying cat appears in Agnes DeMille's Lizzie Borden: A Dance of Death

"The following scene, however, was recounted by the daughter of the Borden's caretaker farmer. Walking and chatting with Lizzie about one of
Mr. Borden's farms, he noticed a cat which kept rubbing against Lizzie's skirt. It must have annoyed the older woman for she suddenly leaned down, grabbed the cat by the tail, swung it twice around her head at arm's length, and let it fly, screeching and clawing, in an arc about fifty feet away. Not one whit out of breath, she resumed conversation with her wide-eyed companion. In fairness, however, it must be recounted that a small cat on another farm, hurt by a scythe while the farmer cut grass, drew Lizzie's entire sympathy, and she bound up the gash and nursed it solicitously, making several trips from home to do so." (DeMille:29)

No names are given for the caretaker or his daughter (who would have heard the story second-hand at the very least).

NO, it was a made-up story, or urban legend. Because if it had happened, it would have been brought up between Aug 1892 and June 1893 or after in the newspapers. Not that they are always right.
Given the life span of a cat, it could not have happened years later.
But this is just my surmise.

Most likely an urban legend, though I'd like to keep an open mind on it.

The story came from Abby's niece, so it would b interesting to know more about her, was she being honest or was she vindicative?

I think it would be very difficult to have done this, unless the cat had been poisoned first.

The test for any of these "urban legends" or modern fairy tales (which have a moral?) is to ask for the date, time, and place.
IF they can't be provided, you can suspect an "urban legend", or story which amuses the teller and the told.

May I ask why this subject has come up again? Just wondering.
We have collected all the kitty stories around here somewhere and sourced them- maybe the archive is being searched?

Lil' Abby was Abby's half niece, daughter of her 1/2 sister, Sarah Bertha (Bertie) Gray.

Kat @ Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:05 pm wrote:May I ask why this subject has come up again? Just wondering.
We have collected all the kitty stories around here somewhere and sourced them- maybe the archive is being searched?

Lil' Abby was Abby's half niece, daughter of her 1/2 sister, Sarah Bertha (Bertie) Gray.

If that ever happened, it should have been reported in the newspapers between August 4 1892 and June 1893. Was it?
Any story created afterwards should be suspect.

But it is the later, unfounded stories that are the most interesting.

Pearson traded in those kinds of stories. I hope he died rich.

Certainly sounds like gossip to me. She was such an animal lover and left a considerable amount of money to the local humane society. I just cannot believe she could do that, even if it was Abby's cat.

Well she left a bunch to her human servants too and word is she slaughtered her parents so..also if the cat was something Abby loved and Lizzie hated Abby so maybe she wanted revenge on the 'mean old thing'

Even if she hated that cat, I sincerely doubt she could've brought herself to kill it. Animal lovers aren't exactly wired to love all animals...and brutally murder a dog or a cat because they belong to their hated enemy. It just doesn't compute. Even if said dog or cat were mean, the basic instinct of the animal lover would compel them to not cause undue harm on the animal.

i never believed it. i always thought it was a mash up of the andrew killing pigeons story somehow.

Lizzie was a lover of dogs, and usually dog lovers do not like cats, but in Lizzie's case I don't believe she would have had the heart to kill an animal.

Steveads2004 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2020 4:49 pm i never believed it. i always thought it was a mash up of the andrew killing pigeons story somehow.

Yeah, I think it was born from that. Basically the idea is that Andrew killed the pigeons and Lizzie, in an act of vengeance, murdered the family cat.

While she would understandably be beyond furious at the deaths of her little feather friends by Mr. Borden's miserly wrinkled hands, I doubt that would push her to go attack another animal that (ironically, given what we know about cats) had nothing to do with this.

I think the story about Lizzie killing Abby's cat came from Abby's niece Abby Potter. She gave an interview to Robert Sullivan (a Judge himself) for his book "Goodbye Lizzie Borden". I don't think she would lie about a thing like that.

On another topic - has anyone on this Board visited the Borden house in Fall River? I did, several years ago. It's well worth a visit. It also operates as a bed and breakfast.

I don't believe the cat story.

It makes little sense.

You don't cut off the head of a cat, then leave large sums of money to a animal rescue league in you will and have cats and dogs as pets later in life.

I don't believe it.

The story was delivered as gossip and hearsay by 90 year old who was 9 years old when the murders happened. The story was told to little Abby by her mother Bertie, I think her name was.(Sarah Bertha Whitehead) Her mother supposedly got the story from Abby. Though if you believe that Lizzie did chop up her father and stepmother, then chopping up a cat would be bird feed.

By the time the story got into Robert Sullivan's hands 81 years had gone by since the murders. Also he was the 3rd party to relay it.

We must also consider the source. It was Little Abby's "name-sake-aunt who was killed. No preconceived bias there.

Also, the story was never repeated by anyone else except little Abby 81 years later....when, as I like to put it, she was interrogated by a judge (Robert Sullivan) (Just did a little research. I amend what I just said, Sep. 15th) The story was told by several other people around the time of the murder. A hearsay and gossip. You can find more about it in Parallel Lives.)


When I first started collecting Lizzie Borden Books over 45 years ago (?) Robert Sullivan's account was highly respected by Lizzie Scholars in the Antiquarian book stores in Fall River and New Bedford. Many still regard his account as well written. So do I. But.........

There are to many questions about the cat story that I find hard to swallow. Especially coming from a 90 year old woman and a book writer who is writing a narrative for profit.

But you may think differently. And that's what makes this case interesting.

Even the way it was written. Sullivan makes it sound too sensational and cruel, "in as a matter of fact way," to be true. And no one else ever spoke about it. Who knows! Old Abby Potter could have had a good laugh on Sullivan's expense.

MB - wasn't an elderly 'little' Abby also the source for the story that she was going to be babysat by Abby Borden the day of the murder, but it was cancelled at the last minute?

I haven't heard that one. (If true it probably was mentioned in a newspaper account....me thinks) I can't remember it mentioned in any official public record or book, including Spiering, RADIN, Lincoln, Sullivan, Porter, Pearson, etc. etc. I have read most of them. I don't remember reading anything about it in Rebello or Parallel Lives either. I'll ask my girlfriend about it in the morning (she knows more than I do) and if I can come up with anything I'll let you know.

Of course one cannot know everything. I have probably forgotten more than I can remember.

But the cat story circulated around at the time of the murders. It was gossip. Even mentioned by the milkman. Not certain of the sources, but I think Martins and Binette mention the cat tales in Parallel Lives. Several people mention it. (Look in the index under Mrs. Charles Potter in PL)

The thing I remember about Abby Potter is her description of Lizzie as being mannish, feared, and an outcast or outsider. (if I remember correctly)

Now there was another cat story involving Lizzie. This one is supposedly told by the daughter of the caretaker of one of Lizzie's farms. She took a cat that was rubbing up against her by the tail, swung it above her head and tossed it forty or fifty feet away. Then there
was Bizarro Lizzie who made several visits to the farm to take care of a cat that had his legs damaged by a scythe. You can find those stories in Agnes De mille's book A Dance of Death. And Joe Shmoe saw Elvis in Franklin Tennessee at the Starbucks just last week. So who knows. Unless it's in court testimony, inquests, etc. it is hard to prove it ever happened.

Minutiae alert..............

For those interested in Abby Whitehead and where she lived during the Borden Murders (when she was 8 or 9 years old)
This is getting down in the trenches. Minutiae to the extreme. Or just me picking on Robert Sullivan's writing.

But he did confuse me with this part of his narrative.

He says:

"Aunt Abby's house looks just the same, but everything around it is so different," said Abby Potter as, On 30 May 1972, she stood with me looking at the residence that had become famous across the nation as 92 Second Street.

Arriving in Fall River from Mrs. Potter's present home in Providence, we had first visited the former Whitehead place, only two short city blocks behind the Bordens'. Mrs. Potter was delighted to find that 45 Fourth Street was in remarkably good condition, for the attractive small dwelling was where she had been born and raised and where her mother, Mrs. Whitehead, had been born, raised, married and lived her entire life. This property is doubly interesting because the matter of its ownership had significant bearing on the murders.



He talks here about how number "92" became famous for the murders.

Then he talks about number 45 Fourth Street, where Abby Potter and her mother Sarah Whitehead lived at the time of the murders and how he drove by number 45 Fourth Street in 1972 with Abby. (To be in that car, huh?)

But to a junior historian riding around Fall River and looking for the place, he/she would never find it. Today, number 45 is a parking lot. But not the same number 45.

Sullivan should have made himself clear about the address and that the Whitehead residence—which was number 45 in 1892—was changed in 1896 to number 167 Fourth Street.

So, our junior historian would be looking for the Whitehead residence at number 167 Fourth Street. Again, just like number 45 there is no number 167 Fourth Street.You see 167 Fourth Street, which at one time was 45 Fourth Street was changed once again to number 171 Fourth Street, when in the early 20th century the Whitehead property was sold and the house was moved to the back of the lot to make room for a new three decker.

So if you are looking for the Whitehead residence and can't find it. Give me a call. I'll take you there. Just don't get to close and wear a mask.

Interesting or NOT

I remember visiting Fall River years ago and trying to find 92 Second Street. I couldn't find it, until I read the map downtown and realised the street number was different. Actually, the Borden house is almost opposite the bus station! (The City fathers are certainly astute).

I still believe Mrs Potter's story. She might have been 90 years old when interviewed, but she had all her marbles. Maybe Lizzie didn't like cats or maybe because the cat belonged to Abby she killed it for revenge, knowing her intense dislike of Abby.

Yes Jcurrie.

Even as a young man I always had a deep respect for older folks, the stories they told and the advice they would give. Though I hinted at the age factor in my explanation above, almost implying that she would not have a good memory, I only did so to list a possibility to consider. And the fact that you believe what you do about the cat story is fine. I can't prove that the story is not true... only that it can't be proven since no one testified to it under oath.

But the story you tell about looking for number 92 is a perfect example.

When Charles Trafton had 92 built it was actually number 66 Second Street and that was in 1845. Borden purchased the place in 1872 and by 1875 the city changed the address to 92. Then in 1896 the city changed addresses again to 230 Second Street, which it is today... or was until it was changed back to 92. The next house up is the Kelly place which today carries the number 240.

Another trivial note..... Number 92 Second Street is the first address on Second Street. There are no other addresses between 92 and the beginning of 2nd Street, a good portion which was removed and turned into a walking mall.

The question is why I allow such information to occupy so much room in my head. Wish I could ask Abby Potter.

Newbie back again, too many cups of tea and am having a Dickens of a time getting to sleep, but I decided to look at different topics in your forum to read until my eyelids start to get heavy. I did a fair amount of reading earlier, and in all candor do not think too highly of Abby Porter or Hiram Harrington. From what I’ve read tonight I have a gut feeling that Mr Borden’s brother in law Hiram was possessed of a covetous nature and that “little” Abby was raised by a bitterly resentful mother who spewed vinegar when she saw her sister Abby wasn’t going to be able to wheedle a fortune away from old Andrew and share it with her family. I can understand grievance about the death of her aunt, but I don’t buy the claims of cruelty to the cats. Not when she cared enough to give tens of thousands to animal welfare organizations. I can’t claim to know what happened but it ticks me off that there were so many back in the day and even to present day so incurious about some things but who tied themselves in knots going after someone without conclusive evidence.

I think perhaps the most convincing thing to negate the cat killing and/or cat throwing stories aside from the initial investments she made in the Animal Rescue League of Fall River and sizable chunk of her and Emma's estates that were left to them is that photograph of Lizzie with one of her three Boston Terriers, Laddie Miller. Stefani Koorey says of the photo in a lecture given in New Hampshire primarily to do with the hatchet, "This is not a woman who swung cats around." Not to mention the fact that she at some point in her life at Maplecroft supposedly had two cats and a pet bird...then again it's not proof either way

I saw that lecture and believe that is what pulled me in to wanting to learn more. I really enjoyed it.