A portal to freedom

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).