Inside the House That Suggests History Got Sad Spinster Lizzie Borden All Wrong

Fabulous real estate aside, popular culture paints post-trial Borden as a lonely outcast who was shunned by her neighbors and taunted by local kids who threw rotten eggs. But that’s not quite true: Borden lived at Maplecroft, for a time, with her sister Emma, nine years her elder, and their many pets—three Boston Bull Terriers and a black cat named Daisy. She had few if any friends among the townspeople, who had come to a slow acceptance, despite the jury’s verdict, that their Sunday School teacher had almost certainly committed the gruesome crime. Borden rarely ventured out except to go to the theater, where she could sit unnoticed in the darkness, and in 1904 the spinster fell into and found camaraderie with an inarguably more interesting bunch: the roving and booming Massachusetts theater community, including famous starlet Nance O’Neil, with whom Borden developed a close friendship.