| December 25, 1845 |
Andrew Borden, 23, marries Sarah Morse and moves into a house on 92 Second St., Fall River, Massachusetts. (Andrew would later purchase this home in 1871). |
| July 19, 1860 |
Lizzie Andrew Borden is born. |
| March 26, 1863 |
Sarah Borden, mother of Lizzie and her older sister Emma, 12, dies. |
| June 6, 1865 |
Andrew Borden remarries. His new wife is Abby Gray, age 37. |
| 1887 |
Lizzie Borden stops calling her stepmother "Mother." |
| 1889 |
Bridget Sullivan, an Irish immigrant, begins working at the Borden home. |
| June 24, 1891 |
Daytime robbery of cash and jewelry at the Borden home (Emma, Lizzie, and Bridget are home at time). Lizzie, who had earlier been accused of shoplifting by a local merchant, is the family's prime suspect. From this date, doors to the Borden home--inside and out--are kept locked. |
| April 1892 |
According to Hannah Gifford, a Fall River cloakmaker, Lizzie tells Gifford that Abby "is a mean old thing." |
| May or June 1892 |
Andrew Borden uses a hatchet to kill pigeons in the family barn. The pigeons roosted in a barn loft that Lizzie maintained for their benefit. |
| July 21, 1892 |
Following a family disagreement, Lizzie and Emma Borden leave Fall River and travel to New Bedford. |
| August 2, 1892 |
Abby and Andrew Borden awaken, complaining of stomach sickness. Abby visits Dr. Bowen. She suggests that she might have been poisoned, but Dr. Bowen is skeptical. |
| Aug. 3, 1892: A.M. |
Lizzie reportedly tries, unsuccessfully, to buy some poison from Eli Bence at D. R. Smith's drug store. |
| Aug. 3, 1892: P.M. |
John Morse arrives for a stay with the Bordens. Lizzie visits Alice Russell and talks forebodingly about household activities. She says she fears poisoning, that her father has enemies, and that she has seen suspicious characters around the family house. "I'm afraid but that someone will do something," she says. |
| Aug. 4, 1892: A.M. |
About 7 A.M., Abby, Andrew, and John Morse have breakfast. Afterwards, Morse and Andrew go to the sitting room while Abby begins her house cleaning chores. Bridget Sullivan goes to the backyard to throw up. Morse leaves about 8:45. Libby has a light breakfast about 9 A.M. A few minutes later, Andrew leaves the home, taking with him some letters that Lizzie asked him to mail. |
| Aug. 4, 1892: 9:30 A.M. |
Abby goes up the stairs to continue her house cleaning on the second floor. Bridget Sullivan is outdoors cleaning windows for the next hour. Sometime during the next hour, Abby Borden is killed in the guest room by 19 hatchet blows to the back of her head. |
| Aug. 4, 1892: 11 A.M. |
Andrew Borden returns home carrying a small parcel. Bridget Sullivan lets Andrew into the house as she hears a muted laugh from upstairs. Lizzie visits her father briefly in the dining room, telling him that Abby had received a message and left the house. Andrew lies down in the sitting room, and Bridget goes to rest in her attic room. Andrew Borden is murdered shortly thereafter in the sitting room sofa. Lizzie calls for Bridget, saying someone had killed her father. Lizzie tells a neighbor, Adelaide Churchill, that she had been in the barn looking for "irons" (sinkers for an upcoming fishing trip) at the time of the murder. Shortly after 11:15, police are notified of the murders. |
| Aug. 4, 1892: P.M. |
Dozens of policemen troop in and out of the Borden home. Doctors perform a post-mortem on the bodies on the dining room table. Lizzie is interrogated by Deputy Marshal Fleet. Lizzie speaks in a detached manner and when Fleet calls Abby her mother, Lizzie insists, "She is not my mother--she is my step-mother." |
| August 6, 1892 |
An editorial in the Fall River paper criticizes the police for inaction in the Borden case. A funeral service for Andrew and Abby is held at the Borden home. |
| August 7, 1892 |
Emma observes Lizzie burning her blue corduroy dress in the kitchen fire. |
| August 9-11, 1892 |
An inquest, closed to the public, is held to consider the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden. On August 11, Lizzie Borden is arrested by Marshal Hilliard. |
| August 12, 1892 |
Lizzie enters a plea of "Not Guilty." Lizzie is moved to a jail in Taunton, eight miles north of Fall River. |
| August 22-23, 1892 |
A preliminary hearing is held. Judge Josiah Blaisdell finds that there is probable cause to try Lizzie for murder. |
| November 31, 1892 |
Alice Russell tells the grand jury about the visit she received from Lizzie the night before the murders. The grand jury issues an indictment against Lizzie for murder two days later.. |
| June 5, 1893 |
The trial of Lizzie Borden opens at the New Bedford Court-house. |
| June 20, 1893 |
The jury returns its verdict in the Lizzie Borden trial: "Not Guilty." |
| June 1, 1927 |
Lizzie Borden dies at age 67. Eight days later, her sister Emma dies. Both women were buried at the family burial plot in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River. |
