I Spent the Night in the Haunted Lizzie Borden House
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"Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what
she had done she gave her father 41." While not the most accurate song it sure
is a catchy one and one Miss Lizzie Borden heard many times after being
accused of murdering her father and step-mother with an ax in their home
on August 4th, 1892. Today the house where these murders occurred is said to
be quite haunted and serves as a Bed and Breakfast where morbid fans, such
as myself, can stay the night. Which is exactly what I did...alone….in the room
where Abby Borden was found dead on the floor. Am I crazy? Probably. Was I
scared? Oh for sure. Am I glad I did it? 1000%. Read all about my stay below!
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House Info
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Located at 230 2nd Street, Fall River, Massachusetts 02721
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Total of 2 suites and 4 rooms available to rent (you can also book out
the whole house if you would like)
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Rooms start around $250/night
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Can opt to eat breakfast in the home, which includes a mix of things Abby
and Andrew Borden would have eaten on their final day, for an additional $20
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I arrived in Fall River (which is a much bigger city than I anticipated)
around noon and decided to make my first stop at the Oak Grove Cemetery
where Lizzie and her family are buried. I parked the car and
followed the painted LB’s to her grave. (You can drive to the grave I just
wanted to walk since it was so nice outside.)
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These are the graves of Abby (Lizzie's step-mother) and Andrew (her father). Fun fact, the heads of Mr. and Mrs. Borden are not actually buried with their bodies, but instead are buried 3 feet above them. You can read why here
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After finding Lizzie’s grave I decided to find a spot to sit in the cemetery
and enjoy the beautiful day by doing some reading. (In case anyone is
wondering, my book of choice was The Woman in Cabin 10.)
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This was my view while I was reading. So pretty.
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After spending a couple hours in the cemetery I made my way to Battleship
Cove to see some old navy vessels. There is also a museum and a place
where you can walk on to the USS Massachusetts however I didn’t have
much time to really explore and instead stayed on the boardwalk.
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Then, finally, it was time for my daytime tour of the Lizzie Borden house! I
parked my car in the little parking lot in the back of the house and met
my tour group in the barn/gift shop in the back.
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The tour started with our tour guide welcoming us in through the front
door of the house just like the Bordens themselves would have done. I thought
this was a very nice little touch that really helped add to the authenticity of the entire house.
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From there we walked into the foyer and directly to the left into one of the
sitting rooms within the house. Our tour guide began to recount the tale of
the murders, gave facts about the Borden family, and even provided us
with some ghost stories as we continued through the house.
You can read more about my amazing tour and learn the story of Lizzie
Borden (complete with some crazy pictures) here!
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After my daytime tour of the house, which was the last tour of the day, I was
able to bring my luggage in and get settled in my room. Since they give tours
of the entire house throughout the day overnight guests are not allowed to
check in to the bed and breakfast until after 5pm and must be checked out of
their room before 10am. Oh and when I say check in I mean use a key code
to let yourself into the house. There is no front desk to check in at or even
people associated with the house on the premises until morning so you are on your own.
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I struggled with entering the house when I couldn’t get the front
door open and instead had to use the side door.
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I trekked my luggage past the creepy staircase to the attic, as well as the creepy staircase to the basement
through the kitchen
through the sitting room where Mr. Borden was found
through the foyer where there hung a dress on a mannequin that I swore was a ghost every time I saw it
and then up the wooden staircase to my room.
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I chose to stay in the John Morse room which is one of the most requested
rooms in the house as well as the room where Abby Borden was slain.
On the floor. Next to the bed. The bed I was supposed to sleep in. *nervous laugh*
Opening the door to the room there were a couple of things that immediately
caught my eye. First, was the size of the room. It is definitely
smaller than it appears in the pictures.
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Second, was the mirror on the dresser. Like why you gotta be putting the
mirror right in front of the bed? I don’t want to sleep in that bed now! What
if I see something in the mirror while I’m in bed? Y’all best believe I’d leave
if that happened. Lol (One thing I learned on my entire spirited away vacation
is that while I love spooky things I am a HUGE scaredy cat.)
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I dropped off my luggage and then took a seat on the couch.
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Almost immediately I realized that the house was extremely quiet and there was
a 99% chance I was the only one in the whole (haunted) house. Not exactly
what I intended on and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t internally freaking
out. (See? Scaredy cat.) I decided sitting alone in my room made me a bit of
a sitting duck for the ghosties and instead decided to do another little walk
about the house where I discovered that, thankfully, I was not alone in the
house as there was also a couple there with me. I went back up to my room feeling
slightly more relaxed and decided to do a little blog work before my evening
walking ghost tour around Fall River.
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Couldn’t go back up to my room without a quick photo op tho! All I axe is that you don’t get on my bad side. Lol
Also had to take a picture of this sign which was on the door to my shared bathroom. Yes. Shared bathroom. When you spend the night here you will most likely have to share a bathroom with other guests which honestly wasn’t as bad as I thought.
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Not long into my writing I heard to my left two sharp knocks on the wall.
I stopped what I was doing and looked over listening for another noise.
The knocks came from this corner.
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After a minute or so of waiting nothing more happened and I chalked up
the knocks to the house settling or street noise. (This room was right off the
street and you could literally hear everything.) I went back to writing and
then downstairs, I heard the beginnings of an EVP session. Of course I would
be in a house of people who are looking to capture evidence of ghosts….of course. *sigh*
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I continued to work on the blog when I heard them ask downstairs “if there is someone
here with us can you please make a noise?” Almost immediately after the question
I hear, much louder, another set of raps ON THE DOOR TO MY ROOM. (I had left
the door open because it felt more isolating to have it closed lol) After that second
set of knocks I sat straight up and listened, waiting for the EVP session to be over.
Then I made my way downstairs and I asked the couple if they had been knocking
or making similar noises and they responded with a “no, but we were asking the spirits
to.” Great. It was The Conjuring House all over again...the ghosts liked me. Woo.
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I talked more with the couple and they invited me upstairs to do another EVP
session in their room in the attic (WHERE THE GHOST KIDS ARE 😅) and I accepted.
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They were staying in the Andrew Jennings room on the third floor of the house.
Here is a picture of their room.
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The wife and I sat on the bed with the door closed and the lights off
asking questions while the husband used their night vision camera to
film us and the room. About 15 minutes into our session he stops us and
tells us that he saw a couple of orbs fly over our heads. He said he had
been trying to recreate them, but wasn’t having any luck
and let us watch the video playback.
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On the playback of the video you can see the first orb start from the corner
of the room and then fly out and up on a curved path. Then, not long after
you see another orb do the same, but go in the opposite direction. This didn’t
happen at any other point in the video, there was no way it could have been
a reflection or headlights, and it certainly wasn’t dust or a bug. Could these
orbs be the spirits of Abby and Andrew Borden? Or the kids that are said
to haunt that third floor? We will never know, but I definitely believe that they
had captured some paranormal evidence with those orbs.
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After that I went back to my room to do some more writing and then
made my way out into the cold Massachusetts night for my Fall River
walking ghost tour. Even though it was absolutely freezing outside
I LOVED the ghost tour. It was filled with a lot of very interesting facts
about Fall River, provided a lot of crazy connections back to the Bordens, and
our tour guide, Pat, was incredible. I could have listened to him talk all night
long and he made the tour, which was filled with tons of not so happy stories, a
lot of fun. I HIGHLY recommend you do this tour.
Pat outside of Lizzie's old church.
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After my ghost tour I sat with Pat and most of the other overnight guests in
the sitting room listening to more stories regarding the house and it’s more
permanent residents. It was a super chill time and I really enjoyed it! The
group broke up for bed a little before midnight and I went on up to my room
alone dreading the night ahead of me. However, before I left Pat could tell I
was freaking out and he kept reassuring me that I would be fine. He told me
that plenty of people had slept in that room without incident and I can always
just tell the spirits to leave me alone if I was uncomfortable. He’s the best.
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Back in my room I started out on the couch with both headphones in and Netflix
on. I planned to stay on this couch the entire night because of its location in the
room, but as the night went on it got colder and colder and when I began shaking
I figured it was time to buck up and actually get in the bed under the covers. Once
I was in bed I was faced with a dilemma. To my right was the door to my room
(which I did finally close) as well as a dress on a mannequin in the corner. Creepy
and unsettling and if I saw either thing move I was done and both were also things
I didn’t want to put my back to in fear of being snuck up on.
This dress is the dress that was worn by Elizabeth Montgomery in the movie
The Legend of Lizzie Borden which our tour guides said was the most accurate depiction of the story.
Fun fact, during the filming of the movie Elizabeth Montgomery found that she is actually distantly related to the Bordens! How cool!
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Next, to my left, was the dresser with a big mirror on it as well as the place
where Mrs. Borden was killed. If I saw anything move in that mirror
I was definitely leaving that house and it also felt disrespectful to put my
back to where Abby was found. This left my only option to be laying on
my back which isn’t extremely comfortable for me and also opened me
up to a couple more issues. Laying on my back meant I now had these
things in my peripheral vision which made everything worse and I also
had 3 windows in front of me that were reflecting the room. I had to get out
of the bed to close the curtains and then built a pillow wall on my right while
I halfway laid on my left side looking at my computer screen with both
headphones in. I’m sure it was quite the sight to see.
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With the light shining brightly (there was no way I was turning off that light lol)
I tried to get some sleep because I did have a long drive ahead of me the next day.
I think in total I got about two hours of broken sleep, but that is better than
nothing! Lol Every time I woke up it took me a minute to remember where
I was. I would be like “Why was I scared to go to sleep? This is just a cool old inn” and
then I would remember that Abby Borden was murdered right next to me and would
freak myself out making it near impossible to fall asleep again. *eye roll*
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Honestly if it wasn’t for me freaking myself out I probably would have actually
gotten a good night’s sleep because, truth be told, I didn’t really experience
anything in the house. There was one point during the night where I did hear
my name loudly whispered in the room, but other than that, the knocks earlier, some
weird ticking noises that sounded like an old camera winding up, and
the ghost orbs, I have nothing paranormal to report . In fact, I didn’t even really
feel anything while I was there energy wise. I know that’s not what y’all were wanting to hear, but
I was pretty okay with that being my experience. Lol
I survived the night.
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I got out of bed around 6:30am and began packing up to leave. I took some last minute pictures:
I didn’t learn about this till later, but apparently people leave change in this room and in Mr. and Mrs. Borden’s room so that the spirits leave them alone. The change is later collected and donated to the Animal Rescue League of Fall River, an animal shelter that was near and dear to Lizzie’s heart.
The entire time I was in this room I couldn’t bring myself to walk on top of the area where Abby was found. However, before I left I figured I needed to buck up and take a picture laying where Abby was murdered and then promptly left the house saying goodbye to all the spirits and the town of Fall River. Lol
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As I mentioned in the opening paragraph of this article I am really glad I
chose to stay the night at the Lizzie Borden house. It was a unique experience
and one that I am happy to have under my belt. However, I currently have no
plans to return for another overnight stay...at least not alone. For my first bed
and breakfast stay I couldn't have asked for a better experience and I will gladly
go back...as long as someone is with me. lol Would you stay the night here?
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