Eerie Encounters at The Lizzie Borden House & Oak Grove Cemetery (Graphic)

This past weekend has been one for the books – I finally met my best ghoulfriend Jody (Midnite Spookshow) in person after growing pretty close this past year. This trip had been something we were anticipating for about 3-4 months, not only because of all the awesome spooky stuff we had planned (which I’ll get into soon, I promise), but because it was a super important milestone for us in our friendship.

First, I do have to thank Miranda from Spooky Little Halloween for creating The Samhain Society. Though I had been a subscriber of Jody’s YouTube channel for a while, I think it was being members of the group that really brought us together and allowed us to get to know each other on a more personal level. So Miranda, if you’re reading this, thank you for creating a platform where we can meet fellow creeps!

Ok, enough of the sappy shit 😛 The first place we went to kickstart our weekend was to Fall River, MA – to an 1845 Victorian home located at 230 Second Street. This home is better known as the home of Lizzie Borden – and where a tragedy occurred on August 4th, 1892 that would change Fall River forever.

The Entrance

Upon entering the home, we were greeted by our tour guide Sue (who was awesome) and encouraged to take photos of the front parlor. As soon as I walked through the door I was overwhelmed with an unexplainable feeling. It wasn’t fear, I suppose it just felt surreal that I was finally standing in the infamous home that I had only seen in photos and documentaries prior. Sue told us that the doorknobs on the front door were original to the home, so what we had just touched – Lizzie touched as well…I’d be lying if I said that part didn’t send a shiver or two down my spine. We were also told that this front room was where Lizzie was given the news that she was the prime suspect in the case.

Jody, two other women, and myself sat down in a couple of crushed velvet armchairs and listened while Sue gave us some background information about the family, and explained a few items that could be seen around the room. We had to laugh at the sheet music that was on the piano:

* I highly recommend looking up this song on YouTube…lol

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The Dining Room

The dining room is where things began to feel a little eerie to me – mostly due to the old coroners table that was leaned against the wall, and the models of Andrew & Abby’s hacked skulls sitting encased in a glass hutch. Here, Sue explain what happened the morning of, and the days prior to the murders. On August 2nd, Andrew and Abby Borden awake feeling ill and complaining of stomach sickness. Abby see’s their Doctor and both fear they might have been poisoned.

During a visit with a friend on August 3rd, Lizzie expresses that she fears her father has been poisoned by an enemy, and that she has seen suspicious characters around the family house. “I’m afraid that someone will do something,” she says. It was reported that same day, Lizzie had attempted to purchase prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide) from D.R Smith’s drugstore but she was not successful.

After the murders are committed on the morning of August 4th, an autopsy of Andrew Borden is performed in their dining room (on the coroner’s table you see in the photo), and no trace of cyanide was found in his system. Some people speculate that poisoning still could have occurred, since HCN leaves the body rather quickly. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d have an appetite after learning what went down in there!

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The Sitting Room

One of the most anticipated, and most notorious rooms of the house. Though the sofa isn’t the same one (of course it isn’t…because, well, ew) it’s pretty damn close if you ask me. I actually saw it in passing from the front parlor to the dining room and couldn’t wait to make our way in there. As beautiful as this room was, there was an unexplainable heaviness here. I think it was simply knowing the fate of Andrew Borden when he laid his head down to rest that morning.

Jody was able to recreate the infamous crime scene photo, with a little help from yours truly 😉 I really appreciated that Sue allotted extra time to be spent in this room, to make sure we got all of the shots we wanted (she was actually the one who took this for us). I look way too happy to be hacking her up, but Sue was making me laugh…I promise lol

One of my favorite shots of the whole trip!

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We made a full circle back around to the foyer area, and then headed upstairs. As soon as I got close to the top, I turned my head to the left. Through the spindles I saw another notorious room, which anyone who is familiar with the incident would recognize:

The Guest Room (John Morse Room)

When we had gotten back to our hotel room that night, I was going through all the photos I had taken on my camera and this one definitely stood out to me. This room was another that was absolutely gorgeous, but felt grim at the same time. At one point Jody and I made our way over to the front of the bureau to look at the crime scene photos, and were standing in the very spot where Abby Borden received 1 blow between her shoulder blades, and another 18 to the back of her head:

I found it interesting that Abby Borden had already been dead for quite some time before Andrew was murdered. When police arrived at the scene, Andrew’s wounds were still dripping with blood while the pool of blood surrounding Abby’s head was already congealed.

The rest of the 2nd floor consisted of the family’s bedrooms, with the exception of Bridget Sullivan (the maid) who had her own room in the 3rd floor attic…and that’s where everyone really started to feel uneasy.

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The Attic

Now, attic’s are typically creepy regardless but the energy up there made me start to physically feel sick. When we first got up there we all huddled into the far bedroom and as Jody was taking photos, her camera battery drained completely. That was the first sign that something was off up there.

The next bedroom I didn’t even want to step foot in, there was a crawl space against the far wall and when I asked Sue about it, she told us that one night they had a medium enter that bedroom and she could sense spirits of children coming in and out of that space. She said it was the most terrifying night of her life, and that’s why they leave so many toys out in front of it.

The last bedroom we entered was Bridget Sullivan’s room, and standing in that room is where I began to feel sick. The four of us were standing there listening to Sue talk and I started feeling extremely hot, panicky, and like I was going to vomit. Jody said she could sense I was panicking and while I wasn’t trying to be rude, I really just wanted to finish up there so we could go back downstairs. What made it worse, was while Sue was talking she heard a bang at the bottom of the attic steps and the other ladies heard it too. You can imagine at that point, I was done lol I immediately felt relief once we got out of there.

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Oak Grove Cemetery

After the tour of the house was finished, we knew we wanted to check out the family plot where the Borden’s are buried. But before we headed to the cemetery, we decided to take photos of the outside of the home. While Jody was taking photos I noticed a man in a janky old blue Honda civic intentionally slow way down while passing the house, rolled down his window, and just stared at us. Him and I made eye contact for a good 5 seconds before he sped up and went on his way (so I thought).

We hopped in the car and drove to the cemetery, which when we pulled in we were the only other car there besides a black pickup which seemed like it was someone from maintenance. We got out and started taking photos of the entrance, when I noticed the same shitty blue Honda pull in about 2 minutes after we did. Instead of parking in the lot, he drove down one of the driveways to the right of us, turned the car off, and just sat there.

I started to get a really bad gut feeling so I called Jody over and we both immediately got in the car and decided to drive around the cemetery for a bit to see if we could lose him. Low and behold he pulls up behind us, ends up going to the top of a hill where he had a pretty good view of most of the area, again shuts his car off and just sits there. At this point it was pretty clear he was keeping an eye on us so we decided to leave. A cemetery is way too easy to get trapped inside of and we didn’t want to risk that.

We left the cemetery and sort of hid out down a side street, and saw his car leave right after we did. We quickly went back, got the photos of the graves, and got the hell out of Fall River.

Moral of the story, if you come to this city to explore, don’t come alone. We probably looked like two easy target’s to whoever this guy was: we’re two small girls who were by themselves, and were clearly tourists. We had expensive camera equipment around our necks, and a lot of cash on us.

This was a really strange occurrence but if I’m being honest, both of us got bad vibes from the entire area. Fall River is unfortunately not the kind of place you want to take a nice stroll around.

Always be aware of your surroundings when in new places, not just in cemeteries. Be safe!