On the day Lizzie was acquitted, the crowds had gathered in numbers to see her walk out the front door to freedom at last.  In a clever maneuver to thwart the Press and the masses, arrangements were made to take Lizzie out by the back door to a waiting carriage.  The side door to the old court house on County Street did not exist in 1893 and so the back door was the only other way to make an exit. 

“Behind the original building [New Bedford Courthouse, 1828), where architect Nat C. Smith's 1899 addition is now, there were stables for visiting attorney's to use. During the weeks of this sensation trial [Borden Trial] they were outfitted as telegraph stations …” SOURCE: Brink, Robert J. Courthouses of the Commonwealth. University of Massachusetts Press: Boston. 1984. 95. Several steps now go down from the original building to the ground level of the addition.  The archway in the photo below is said to be the opening of the old back exit, now used as the transition place into the addition and framed out with matching finish carpentry and moldings.

Newspaper sketch from: Flynn, Robert. Lizzie Borden Sourcebook.Flynn Publishing: Portland, ME: Sketch appeared  on (page 5, of the Boston Globe of 6/21/1893 probably drawn by Bert Poole or an artist with the last name of Grant).

While Lizzie was cooling her heels in Taunton jail, candidates Harrison and Cleveland, (republican and democrat nominees elected on the first ballot) were coming down the home stretch to election day. The election campaign was dominated by the issue of tariffs with Cleveland running against the increase in tariffs that Harrison had brought about.  There was no campaigning by either candidate. Harrison’s wife was gravely ill and he did not even hold porch speeches. Cleveland, out of deference to Harrison did not either.  Imagine THAT today!
Cleveland won the election with nearly 75% pf eligible voters going to the polls.

Lizzie lived during the terms of the 15 presidents listed below, Lincoln, Garfield ( for whom Andrew Borden’s patent medicine tea was named), and McKinley (last Civil War vet to be elected) were all assassinated. In August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution became law, and women could vote in the fall elections, including in the Presidential election.  Lizzie could have voted in 1920 for:

 or in 1924 for

 She would die before the 1928 elections when Herbert Hoover took office.

        Buchanan to Coolidge       

James Buchanan

Abraham Lincoln

Andrew Johnson

Ulysees S. Grant

Rutherford B. Hayes

James Garfield

Chester A. Arthur

Grover Cleveland

Benjamin Harrison

William McKinley

Teddy Roosevelt

William Taft

Woodrow Wilson

Warren Harding

Calvin Coolidge

Maybe Mr. Terry drove Lizzie to the polls!