Some Familiar Names

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Fri Jun 25, 2004 10:36 pm

This is too strange. It's time-travel, is what it is.
I read recently the William's book called "Fall River: An Authntic Narrative" and now am reading "Fall River Outrage" (thanks Mark!).
These are about the murder of Sarah Cornell In Fall River, either 1831 or 1832 (they each give a different year). This is in Andrew Borden's lifetime! He'd be about 10 years old.
Listen to this list of names involved in some way:

Susannah Borden
Benjamin Manchester
Thomas Hart
Seth Darling (William knows what that means!)
Harriet Hathaway
David Anthony
John & Jesse Eddy
Charles Durfee
Judge Samuel Eddy
Nathaniel Borden
Jeremiah Mason (Diana knows what this means!)
William Allen, a "bystander at the discovery of the body":- sound familiar?

augusta · Post by **augusta** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 10:42 am

I think most of the Borden case characters come from very old Fall River stock. When you visit the area today, you keep seeing the same names over and over: Borden. Durfee. Mello. Tripp. Sullivan. Silvia. Coggeshell. It's a filing clerk's nightmare.

Reading historical books on Fall River, I have come to appreciate how important the name Borden really was. I had no idea before. And these other old names, too.

lydiapinkham · Post by **lydiapinkham** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 12:49 am

Was Jeremiah Mason the prosecutor?

--Lyddie

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 2:26 am

I've since found out that Jeremiah Mason, who defended Rev. Avery, was Daniel Webster's Law Partner.

Diana and I had been exploring the surname of family "Mason" in Rhode Island, as the maiden name of the wife of William Bradford Morse, John Vinnicum Morse's brother.

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 1:45 am

Another aspect of Familiar Names:

All graduated from B.M.C.Durfee High School, Fall River:
Victoria Lincoln
Arnold Brown
Robert Flynn
Leonard Rebello!

Wow!

Edisto · Post by **Edisto** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 12:13 pm

I assume Lincoln, Brown, Flynn & Rebello weren't classmates. A couple of 'em are looking a lot livelier than the rest.
Several years ago, I discovered that an acquaintance of mine here in Northern Virginia was a grad of BMC Durfee HS. I was all set to start picking her brain about Lizzie when she began telling me a story about Lizzie's "descendants."
Oh, well...

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 3:05 pm

I just read the booklet on Helen Pierce, the Historian of Swansea, and she also graduated B.M.C.Durfee High.

It's called "Let Me Introduce You To Helen Pierce," by Nancy Collins Boardman. Helen was born in 1901, on Gardner's Neck Road, Swansea. She is still alive.

Also, in this booklet, there is a picture of a house and windmill (pg. 18). The windmill was to provide the power to pump the water up to the second floor, and was considered "unique" in that capacity. A member here posited the theory of windmill power but didn't give a source. I think this might be the source. They said it was their *theory* that maybe those on Second Street used such contraptions for getting water pumped to the second floor, which was chuckled at in Fall River lately- no offense.

Edisto · Post by **Edisto** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 10:10 am

Slightly apropos...The Washington Post has a front-page story this morning about an elderly black woman who became interested in genealogy after her retirement. She learned that her great-great-grandparents had been servants (possibly once slaves) in the home of a white family in Prince George's County, MD, which is one of our adjacent counties. Wanting to know more about her ancestors, she got in touch with an even-older member of that family (whose surname is Bowie). He was a fount of information, because he had actually known the couple about whom she was inquiring and was able to point out their burial plot in his family's cemetery. The names of the old couple were Basil and Lizzie Wood. The name of their descendant is Anna Holmes (the name of one of Lizzie's friends at Marion). Basil Wood was born in 1824 and lived until 1920. Elizabeth "Lizzie" Wood was born in 1834 and died in 1926. They lived incredibly long lives for the times. It's fascinating that Anna Holmes has actually been able to converse with someone who knew them personally -- what a link to history!