History of the Borden House

The famous address on Second Street still draws many visitors to its front door, just as it did on the morning of August 4, 1892 when word of the shocking double homicide of Andrew and Abby Borden became known.

Built by Southard Miller in 1845 for Charles Trafton, the Borden family arrived in 1872 when Lizzie was twelve years old and her sister Emma, twenty-one.  Mr. Borden had remarried in 1865 and the family of four settled down on busy Second Street where Mr. Borden could be close to his business interests.

There was wall-to-wall carpeting on the first and second floor, central heating with radiators, lace curtains in the parlor, and a pull-chain toilet in the cellar for “the girls”.  Mr. Borden also knocked out a wall on the first floor, making a spacious dining room. The house, originally built as a two-family home in 1845, was made into a comfortable home for the Borden family.

After Lizzie’s acquittal in 1893, the Borden sisters moved up to The Hill section of the city and purchased a Queen Anne home which Lizzie called Maplecroft.  The sisters held on to the Second Street house until 1918 when it was sold.

Over the years, other people have died at #92, but only two were ever murdered there. The crime is unsolved to this day.  The property has served as a rooming house, a printing business, a toy and stationery business, the home of an insurance man, a family home, and in 1996, a bed and breakfast museum.

Only this house and the little cape-styled home next door remain of the original buildings in this block of Second Street.