Before I visit a famous place, I usually like to tour it virtually inside and out. That may seem like a way to spoil the experience, but a two-dimensional image is nothing compared to the real thing.
Before visiting the Lizzie Borden House, though, I wanted to go into it completely blind. I’m sure I’d seen the house on old ghost hunting shows and photos of specific rooms in books I’ve read on the subject, but I had totally forgotten most of what I had seen in the past and was curious to see what it looks like, and more importantly feels like, in its current state.
In July 2026, my sister and I took a tour of the Lizzie Borden House through US Ghost Adventures. You can get 10% off your own tour of the house using code LAURA10 at checkout.
Arrival at the house
It was over a two-hour drive from where we were staying in Salem to the house located at 230 2nd Street in Fall River, MA. We were the first tour of the day, which started at 10:30. So, we left early and got there just in time for the 15-minute window they recommend you arriving before the tour starts.
FYI, the driveway is on the left side of the home. We came in approaching the house on the left, and I missed the turn in. So, I had to circle around. The neighborhood is busy but more on the suburban side. So, it was no big deal to loop around the block.
The parking lot is small, but when you’re the first tour of the day, you get your pick of the free spots. The guest house is in the back of the property. That’s where you go to check in and/or buy your tickets onsite.
The gift shop is small but packed with merch and artifacts. You’ll probably want to stop in again after your tour to better study those artifacts because they do come up in the tour itself, including the Ouija board that was used to conduct seances at the house.
The gift shop also contains the only bathroom that you’re permitted to use on the property as a tour guest. There are bathrooms inside the house, but they’re for those staying the night as the bed and breakfast guides.
Once everyone is checked in and the rules are gone over with each guest, it’s time to begin. We had 10 people in our group. There should have been more, but a group of eight did not show. So, that gave us a more compact group which allowed us to move a little easier throughout the rooms than if there had been 18 of us.
Preparing for the tour
The guides are dressed up to really fit in with the house. Our tour guide’s name was Jonathan. Though he admitted that he had only been doing tours for two months, he was very knowledgeable, knew his facts, and still had the enthusiastic interest of someone who was still learning the ropes and exploring the home from bottom to top like we were.
I’ve done a lot of reading on the Borden murders over the years. In researching my genealogy, I even found a bloodline tied to the Bordens. For more on this, see my post, My History with Lizzie Borden.
There is so much to dissect when it comes to the Borden family, their family history, the town in which they lived, and the infamous murders themselves. One thing that comes across as clear the more you read is that there are so many rumors, misinformation, and contradictions at play in this story. Every account leads you down a different point of view that keeps you guessing as to what actually went on in this house.
Many are resolved to point the finger at Lizzie Borden as the murderer of her father and stepmother. I’m perpetually on the fence about that. It seems like the obvious conclusion, which is why so many people come to it. But to me, there’s a lot about that theory that just doesn’t add up.
The house is old, dark, and surprisingly small, giving it a claustrophobic feeling. It’s also maze-like with its interconnecting rooms in place of hallways, making you twist and turn through doorways and up and down staircases to get to where you’re going, yet it all seems to interconnect.
For years, the house has been talked about as extremely haunted, especially for guests who stay the night. It’s unlikely to experience much paranormal activity over an hour tour, but during the time I was there, some uneasiness settled over me in certain rooms.
The beginning of the tour
We began the tour in the front of the house. Jonathan took another door inside while we waited for him outside the front door. He then emerged holding a rubber hatchet, partly for a joke and partly for atmosphere.
We were invited into the foyer, which was the longest space in the house. A doorway across from the front door led to the parlor where Mr. Borden was murdered. That was where the tour began.
Walking on the ornate carpeting with a crystal chandelier glowing above us really set a tone. The furnishings and objects placed on them really made the home feel lived in and functional, at least for the 1890s.
It was a hot day, but it was cool in the house, very much unlike it would have been on the hot, August morning of the murders with the only source of relief coming from the breeze that might have blown in through the windows. But it makes for a much more comfortable tour.
It should be pointed out that none of the furniture is original to the house, but it was selected in order to best reflect the furniture that was present when the family lived there. I feel like they did a great job selecting those pieces.
On the mantle above the fireplace in the parlor, there are framed crime scene photos. When you match up the couch where Mr. Borden was found slain with the one that’s now in the room, they look nearly identical.
The floral pattern on the wallpaper and carpeting creates this ornate clash of patterns that gives you a dizzying feeling in the room. The light from the windows, including the ones that the family’s housekeeper, Bridget Bishop, was cleaning at the time of Mrs. Borden’s murder, is blocked by dark curtains. Warm lighting illuminates the interior of the home, making late morning feel like early evening.
The parlor
We guests were informed that we were allowed to sit on the furniture in the first-floor rooms during the tour. So, many of us took a seat in the parlor, though a mannequin covered in a sheet which sat in as Mr. Borden took up the majority of one couch.
This mannequin caught a lot of the group members off guard. I heard some short gasps, followed by some nervous chuckling. I think some people on the tour may have been afraid there was a real person under the sheet, but to my knowledge, Mr. Borden didn’t move a muscle, even when my sister in the empty seat next to him.
After learning information about each room and the events that took place within it, before, during, and after the murders, we were allowed to look around, take pictures, and ask questions. I don’t think I had many questions as much as a general awe about what I was looking at.
The dining room
After the parlor, we headed into the dining room where the autopsies of both Mr. and Mrs. Borden were performed. They even had a stretcher against the wall that would have been similar to the one placed over the dining room table that the bodies would have laid on.
The bodies were autopsied mainly to determine time of death and help to better create a timeline of events by studying the contents of the victims’ stomachs. This gave us the most concrete evidence in the murders which otherwise would have been lost to us, and we’d probably still be speculating as to who died first and when.
I was fine while we were in the parlor, but after I stepped into the dining room, I began to feel nauseous. Of course, some gory facts were relayed in this room, and autopsy photographs were passed around to anyone who wanted to see them, but I don’t think that was what was bothering me.
There was just an uneasiness in that room, especially when I stood at the end of the table facing the glass cabinet on the other side of the room which contained reproductions of the victims’ skulls that were paraded around in court.
The autopsy photos are totally optional to look at. In fact, Jonathan gave us a choice as to whether or not we wanted to see them and gave people who did not want to see them time to back away from the table where he had set them down.
Of course, I had to look. They were impressively clear considering when they were taken, yet it was nothing like it would have been to have seen them being dissected where they had just eaten their breakfasts earlier that morning.
The second floor
From there, we headed up the curved staircase in the foyer to the second floor. We were warned that there was nowhere to sit in those rooms since they were made up for the overnight guests.
One of the youngest people on our tour claimed to be feeling sick from not eating earlier that morning, and she did kneel on the carpet with no issue. So, if you feel like you absolutely have to sit down and are okay to drop down to and pick yourself up from the floor, that is an option.
The guest bedroom
We first went into the guest bedroom at the top of the stairs where Abby Borden was murdered. The queen-sized bed takes up most of the space in this room, and you have to walk around from the doorway to the other side of the bed in order to see the mannequin lying face down in the position that Mrs. Borden was in when her body was discovered.
I felt a dizzy, nauseous feeling in this room as well. There was nothing sinister about the look of the room. Aside from the mannequin, there was nothing off putting, and even that was a little comical. But I was happy to leave that room when we finished, and the sickening feeling I had did not return in any of the other rooms, even the creepiest of them.
The other bedrooms
We then visited Mr. and Mrs. Borden’s, Lizzie’s, and Emma’s rooms. These rooms interconnected so you had to pass through one to get to another. It created this lack of privacy in a household where tension were already high prior to the murders. Two grown women like Emma and Lizzie had to have felt like even their bedrooms weren’t a space to call their own.
The rooms were decorated with photos, artwork, and mannequins wearing period-style dresses that made you feel like one of the occupants was going to walk into the room at any minute and ask for privacy so that they could change their clothes or write a letter at one of the desks. Jonathan pointed out a framed letter on the desk in Lizzie’s room that I won’t spoil, but needless to say, it adds some clout to the idea that the house is haunted.
The rooms were not very big, especially with the bulky furniture in place. And you wondered what they did with their time with no modern entertainment in the room to occupy them.
The third floor
The large attic was located up another set of stairs. Upstairs were multiple finished rooms. We were warned not to hit our heads on the sloped ceilings. Jonathan mentioned that one person per tour ended up bumping their head, and guess who that person was on our tour.
Despite it being the attic, the spaces felt very friendly. They still had the floral wallpaper and carpeting. They also had items that Bridget would have kept in her room, including some outfits like those she would have worn on the job. It wasn’t so much a uniform as her everyday clothes that she would wear when she carried out her chores.
Prior guests who were also descendants of Bridget had brought the tour company photos and a rubbing of Bridget’s gravestone which were displayed in her room. Even though these items didn’t quite match up with the timeframe that the house was attempting to replicate, it felt like an artifact in a museum that you’re just not going to see anywhere else.
One room in the attic contained toys, including dolls. We later learned that these toys were for the potential spirits of two children who were murdered by their mother, an ancestor of Lizzie’s, next door.
I had read a lot about this prior murder before my visit. However, I was surprised that there is a belief that these apparitions make their way over to the house and up into the attic to play with the overnight guests.
The kitchen
After exploring the third floor, we were led back downstairs to the kitchen. The kitchen was a very large space that felt airy and open compared to the rest of the house. There was an old wood burning stove displayed in the room which is now only for show. There were also more modern amenities for the overnight guests.
Here, the tour ended. However, there was the option to go down into the basement for an extra $5. This was an add in option when buying tour tickets. So, I thought this opportunity had come and gone for us when I decided not to select it. But after seeing what we had seen and wanting the tour to last longer, everyone on the tour who had not initially purchased the basement tour agreed to go on it and pay for it at the end of the tour.
The basement
The basement was the eeriest looking part of the house, but it didn’t make me as uneasy as some of the other parts of the house. It was illuminated by red string lights and electric candles. Here, Jonathan pointed out some dried blood from Mr. Borden on the underside of one of the floorboards that was still there all these years later.
This area was known to be a place where seances occurred in the house. We were told to take a photo of one of the back walls with our flash on and see if we could see the shadowy face that appeared on the wall. I couldn’t get my flash to work. So, my photo didn’t turn out, but I did see a photo on US Ghost Adventures’ website that really does look like the outline of a face.
After exploring the basement, we were led out a rear door and back into the sunlight. We were back to reality, and we headed back to the gift shop for souvenirs. Aside from a shirt, I bought a bag of the Lizzie Borden tea which is really good, and I’m going to miss it when it’s gone.
Maplecroft
After the tour, my sister and I decided to explore some of the nearby locations that come up in the tour. One of those locations is Maplecroft, the house that Lizzie bought after she was acquitted of the murders.
The home was just a few minutes drive from the bed and breakfast. You’ll recognize it as a yellow house with the word Maplecroft carved into one of the front steps. It was also in a much less congested part of town. However, on-street parking was tight.
The owner of the neighboring home we had parked near made it clear that she did not want us there, even though we let her know we’d only be staying a minute. I ran up just fast enough to snap a photo and run back to the car.
A surveillance sign in the window of the home also tipped me off that they don’t like visitors there. So, maybe taking a photo as you’re driving by slowly is the way to go.
Oak Grove Cemetery
We then headed another few minutes away to Oak Grove Cemetery where the Borden family is buried. This family plot includes Lizzie, her parents, her sisters, including Emma and her sister Alice who died in infancy, and her stepmother.
The cemetery road is lined with arrows that lead you right to the plot. So, there’s no guesswork or traipsing around trying to match up the gravestones’ location with online photos.
The Borden obelisk contains the names, birth years, and death years of the three parents and the three children. Then, each family member has their own smaller stone with their first name or initials carved at the top.
Lizzie’s name is carved as Lizbeth, the name she went by after the trial ended. A few rocks, a penny, and a pot of dead flowers surrounded her stone. Emma’s stone also had a pot of flowers which had seen better days. The weather was dry and smoky from the wildfires, creating a very atmospheric tone.
The ground around the graves was worn down to the dirt, showing just how many people come to visit this particular site. I was expecting other members of our tour to follow us to the cemetery. However, we appeared to be the only two in the group who decided to come up to pay our respects.
Final thoughts
At times, I felt like a guest in the house. Other times, I felt like an investigator. At points, I felt like an intruder. And at certain moments, I felt like a time traveler.
A one-hour tour isn’t enough to see any ghost activity. But ghost tours are offered as well as overnight stays. There are also cemetery tours and Victorian tea parties. So, the house has something to offer everyone who is interested in the home for one reason or another, whether it’s the history, true crime, or paranormal aspects of the story behind it.
This house really felt like a big checkmark on my bucket list. It lived up to the hype, and now, when I read about the Borden family, I can picture the layout of the house as well as the general sights, sounds, and smells that go along with it. The world may have changed outside of the home, but inside, it maintains its modest dignity, air of mystery, and eerie past.
What are your thoughts on the Borden murders? What room would you like to stay in if you stayed at the house overnight? Leave your answers in the comments below!
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