There were two major items on this day's agenda. The first was to drive to Fall River to visit the Lizzie Borden House. Yes, folks, it's the actual house where Lizzie Borden (w) and her family lived, and where her father and stepmother were murdered. Terry has always been fascinated by the Lizzie Borden case, so she wanted to visit the house, which the current owners have turned into a museum and a bed and breakfast. Apparently, the room where Lizzie's stepmother was killed is the most requested room. Truly, people are strange.
(Salem Witch Trials and Lizzie Borden - Terry definitely has interesting interests.)
The second item on the day's agenda was to do some "Almy spotting." This requires a little explanation.
A distant cousin of mine, Merwin Almy, spent many years putting together a detailed genealogy of the Almy family. Apparently, most if not all Almys in the U.S. today are descended from William Almy, who came here in the early 1600's. He had five children, two of whom were boys who survived to adulthood, so we're all descended from either Christopher Almy or Job Almy. I'm descended from Job, the younger son.
William Almy originally settled in Lynn, a town north of Boston, but later moved down to Cape Cod, where he was one of nine men who founded the town of Sandwich. He later moved to Rhode Island, and died in Portsmouth. Today, there are a large number of Almys in the New England area, particularly in the area around Fall River, as well as Tiverton, Portsmouth and Little Compton, Rhode Island.
On the way, we stopped in Sandwich for lunch. It would be nice to say we stopped there because the town was founded by my ancestor, but we didn't discover that until later. Actually, we stopped there because we were amused by the idea of having a sandwich in Sandwich! We stopped at a deli called, appropriately enough, "The Deli," and had two excellent sandwiches. We also bought a five dollar lottery ticket. It was a winning ticket. We won five dollars. We took the money and ran.
We arrived in Fall River, and found the Lizzie Borden House:
...and found that we had arrived just in time for the tour. It lasted about an hour, and was quite informative. Our guide - who talked so fast it was sometimes hard to keep up - took us through the whole story, in great detail. The tour covered the entire house, including the actual rooms where Andrew Borden and his wife met their gruesome ends. We saw many pictures of the various characters in the story, including a lovely shot of Mr. Borden's hacked up body - it was in black and white, of course, so it wasn't too gruesome.
There was one bit of information that I found of particular interest. It seems that Andrew Borden, who was a wealthy businessman with multiple business interests, was for a time in the furniture manufacturing business, in partnership with a man named William M. Almy! When I got home, I looked through Merwin's genealogical records until I found the William Almy in question. He turned out to be a descendant of the original William Almy's older son Christopher, and so wasn't in my family line.
After the tour, we drove around Fall River. We found the Borden Building, an office building originally built by Andrew Borden. The building is still in use today - it's occupied by an insurance company:
According to the guide, after Lizzie Borden was tried and acquitted, she and her sister were quite wealthy, due to inheriting their parents' estates. Lizzie changed her name to Lizbeth, and the sisters bought a house, which Lizzie - excuse me, Lizbeth - named Maplecroft. The house still stands, and we found it, as well:
As we drove through town, I spotted this plaque on a house that we passed:
I also spotted a certain street name on Google Maps, and I knew right away that I had to go there. I asked an accommodating neighborhood gentleman to take my picture:
We then drove south, out of Massachusetts and into Rhode Island, through the towns of Tiverton and Little Compton. As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of Almys in that area. Here's a map:
I had also noted on the map something called Almy Rock, at about the location of the red dot on the map above. I wanted to drive by and have a look at it. Unfortunately, there were houses between the road and the water, blocking my view. I contemplated knocking on doors and asking permission to go out into someone's back yard for a look, but I chickened out. It was a nice drive, however, which at one point took us down this country lane:
...and at another point took us past this pond full of ducks:
...who disappointed Terry by not quacking, so she had to take my word for it that they were there.
Driving back into Fall River, we encountered another interesting street name:
There are a lot of Grinnells in New England, as well as Almys.
We had dinner at a Portuguese restaurant - there's a large Portuguese population in Fall River - and then went for ice cream, and then back to the resort.