Not Guilty, Not Forgiven: A Lizzie Borden Walking Tour in Fall River

Fall River's most notorious murder case is only half the story: the other half unfolded in parlor rooms and pews long after the courtroom doors closed. On this walking tour, you'll see where Victorian society quietly handed down its own verdict on Lizzie Borden. You'll also learn how friends, advisors, and even family turned her acquittal into a lifelong sentence of isolation.

The tour starts at the Christian Temperance Fountain on South Main Street, once the commercial heart of a city split between the wealthy Hill and the working-class Flats. You'll pass the AJ Borden Building and the Academy Building, to reach the Borden house itself on Second Street, where Abby and Andrew were killed.

From there you'll climb Rock Street, retracing Lizzie's own path into the Highlands, past the mansions of families who froze her out after her acquittal. You'll see and hear about her Gilded Age home at Maplecroft, her controversial friendship with actress Nance O'Neil, and the hip bathtub discovery that revealed her lawyer's hidden stash of trial evidence found decades later. The tour ends at Oak Grove Cemetery, where Lizzie, Emma, and the Borden family lie among the very elite who once shunned them.

On this 45-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Hear how a McWhirr's Department Store shoplifting habit reportedly saw Andrew quietly cover his daughter's bills
• Discover how an 1843 fire reshaped Fall River, driving its wealthy families up the hill and deepening a lasting social divide
• Learn about Bridget Sullivan, the maid who testified against Lizzie, then vanished from New England forever
• Find out how the Central Congregational Church gave Lizzie the silent treatment through the Victorian 'empty pew'
• Hear the story of Sarah Maria Cornell, whose 1832 death inspired The Scarlet Letter and America's first true crime book
• See the Gothic Revival gates of Oak Grove Cemetery, near where the Bordens were decapitated for trial evidence

By the time you reach the Borden family obelisk, you'll understand exactly why Lizzie's acquittal never bought her peace in the city she refused to leave.