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Victim
The Resume
(September 13, 1822-August 4, 1892)
Resided in Fall River, Massachusetts
Father of (alleged) murderess, Lizzie Borden
Subject of one of the most notorious murder trials in American history
Director of several textile mills including the Globe Yarn Mill Company, Troy Cotton, and Woolen Manufacturing Company
Owned considerable commercial property and was both president of the Union Savings Bank and a director of the Durfee Safe Deposit and Trust Co.
Brutally murdered with an axe, along with his wife, Abby Durfee Gray Borden, by an unidentified assailant, most likely his daughter, Lizzie (August 4, 1892)
Estate, at the time of his death, was valued at $300,000 ($7,874,444 as of 2015)
Murder case remains unsolved over 100 years later
Memorialized in a popular skipping-rope rhyme sung to the tune of the then-popular song Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay (Lizzie Borden took an axe/Gave her mother forty whacks/when she saw what she had done/she gave her father forty-one)
Why he might be annoying
He was a notoriously cheap, Scrooge-like miser.
He initially (and very ironically) made the bulk of his wealth in the casket industry.
He dressed almost entirely in black and generally struck his neighbors as creepy.
He was too cheap to even spring for electricity and modern plumbing (by the 1890s this would have been deemed archaic).
He evidently wanted a boy, because he is the namesake for his youngest daughter's middle name.
Rumors persist that he may have engaged in an incestuous relationship with his daughter.
His obsession with secrecy and containment within the house (allegedly to conceal his incestuous behavior), is believed to have contributed to his daughter's impulsive instability.
He was known for evicting widows with small children from the houses he owned if they couldn't pay the rent.
He and his wife were known as harsh employers who couldn't even be bothered to know the name of their family maid (instead calling her by the name of a previous one).
There are endless theories as to the real identity of his killer (his brother-in-law, the maid, former employees, and even an illegitimate son he was planning to leave out of his will).
His home is not only a contemporary tourist attraction, but ghost-hunters constantly produce 'evidence' to claim that his ghost now haunts the old Borden vicinity.
Why he might not be annoying
One of his first jobs was as a carpenter's 'third arm' assistant.
His second daughter died at the age of two.
He was a work-horse, regularly putting in 14-hour days.
There is no solid evidence that his relationship with his daughter was anything more than a typical father-and-daughter intimacy.
His father, a fish peddler, was one of the few Borden men who had not retained the wealth associated with the Borden family.
He chose to stay in a lower-class neighborhood after attaining his wealth, rather than move to a nicer house on 'The Hill,' as his daughters wanted him to do.
He was murdered little more than a month before his 70th birthday (life expectancy wasn't anywhere near that age in the 19th Century).
One of his prize properties was also nearing completion the day of his murder.
His face was bashed in beyond recognition, thanks to 11-19 whacks with a hatchet (not 40 whacks as is commonly believed).
He wasn't particularly well liked in his own lifetime, but his New Englanders flocked to the site of his murder in its aftermath (it was dubbed 'the crime of the century').
Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair
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Year In Review:
In 2020, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2018, Out of 7 Votes: 42.86% Annoying
In 2017, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2016, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
In 2015, Out of 14 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
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