Governor George D. Robinson’s Chicopee Mansion

George Dexter Robinson will forever be linked to his most famous client, Lizzie Borden, and her trial in New Bedford during June of 1893. Robinson was born in 1834 in Lexington and had many careers as an educator, teacher, politician, state legislature representative, lawyer and governor from 1884-87. He purchased the Hale mansion (built in 1870 in the Second Empire style) and lived there with his second wife Susan from late 1870s until his death there in February 1896, only three years after Lizzie Borden’s acquittal. He is buried with his family in Fairview Cemetery in Chicopee. Robinson was proud of his adopted city and very involved in the Unitarian church there. His $25,000 legal fee from the Borden trial paid for all of the windows, said to be by Tiffany & Co. in his newly-built church. As you view the interiors in this slideshow, one can imagine Robinson in the stately home, on the staircase, coming in the entry doors. Robinson died and was waked in a private service in this house. He is buried with all of his family in Fairview cemetery, Chicopee. The Church of the Assumption owns the property and used the home for many years as a rectory. Today it provides office space for the parish. Robinson’s much sought-after notes and papers on the Borden case, unpublished, still reside in the law offices he shared with his son Walter, on Main St. in Springfield. Thanks to the Chicopee Public Library, the Diocese of Springfield and The Church of the Assumption for making this video possible.