The infamous 1892 murders of Andrew and Abby Borden have captivated New Englanders for more than one hundred years. But the story doesn’t end in Fall River. Far beyond the locked doors of the Borden household, there is a wider web of people, places, and histories connected to the case. From the investigators who shaped the trial and the reporters who sensationalized it to the key locations that marked Lizzie Borden’s life and lingering legacy, there is a multifaceted history behind one of America's most enduring true crime stories. There are the lives of other remarkable—and often overlooked—figures linked to the Borden bloodline. Among them are Innocent Borden, the recently discovered daughter of Thomas Cornell, a man who was executed in 1673 for the alleged murder of his mother in colonial Rhode Island. And then there’s Sarah Maria Cornell, a millworker and distant cousin of Lizzie, whose mysterious death sparked scandal when a prominent Methodist minister was accused of her murder. By weaving these parallel tales of crime, gender, and societal upheaval into the central narrative, local author Sam Baltrusis takes a deep dive into the ultimate whodunit—placing Lizzie’s story within a broader historical and cultural context of rumors, power, and the shifting expectations of women in American society.

Ohio has given us sports legends, world-changing inventors, icons of industry, a wealth of famous artists of all stripes, and eight presidents. It’s also given us ghosts, ghouls, grave robbers, the prematurely buried, historic murders, colorful demises (including death by defective outhouse), those who predicted their own deaths with uncanny accuracy, the violent Wayne County poltergeist, petrified bodies, the Seneca County exploding corpse, obsessive-compulsive Jonathan Ward’s murder-dismemberment of Mrs. Ward, and the faces of way too many dead people appearing in windows.

Whispers of strange noises, oddities, and sightings of the unnatural become part of the area's folklore, hoping to find meaning for the suffering of those who came before. More than two thousand ships have been lost off the coast, along with an untold number of lives, and the suffering of those on the Oregon Trail has been well recounted. The Columbia River, meandering through the heart of the territory, has been the site of countless disappearances and deaths. 

 A complicated friendship blooms during a fated meeting in northern Michigan between two nineteenth-century women writers.

In the mid-1830s, the author Anna Brownell Jameson was called from Britain to Canada to see her husband. Before she returned back home, she embarked on a trip around the Great Lakes to gather material for a book on the “plight of the Indian woman.”

In a remarkable interaction on Mackinac Island, where the current-day lower peninsula of Michigan meets the upper peninsula, she met Jane Johnston Schoolcraft—an Ojibwe American poet and translator married to the geologist Henry Schoolcraft, who was working as an Indian agent for the United States government. The two women talked extensively, bonding over their interests and plights, and sharing private demons.

After their meeting, Anna continued to gain recognition for her writing and become a larger part of the literary scene in Britain and the Continent, entangling herself in the affairs of the likes of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, Ottilie von Goethe, Lady Byron, and Ada Lovelace. Jane became sicker and less able to work.

Incorporated in 1888, the mines along the north end of Ely required hundreds of workers to extract the iron ore that the country needed for steel. At the same time, three miles away, the town of Winton grew around the shore of Fall Lake. By the end of the 19th century, the area was booming and neighborhoods were built around the mines and sawmills. Located in Ely and Winton’s backyard are the Boundary Waters, over 1,000 lakes on the border of Canada. Visitors soon discovered the appeal of a place in the woods on a lake or a canoe trip in the wilderness. Industry and recreation existed side by side, attracting different people from all over—outdoorsmen, nature lovers, businessmen, and students. 

Author Peter Seibert spent years of his life fostering the history and culture of Western landmarks and in this collection of historical vignettes, he explores fascinating people and moments that crafted a Western consciousness. Legendary craftswomen Maria Martinez, Nampeyo, and Elle of Ganado forever changed Native American artistry. Merchant George Henderson’s account book for his 1904 ranch house provides a rare glimpse into the origins of an iconic American home design, as Seibert overviews home styles from the adobe to pueblo revival. Whether you like red, green, or Christmas chiles on your cheeseburger, all options are appropriate to accompany an endless variety of Western movies from Blazing Saddles to The Hateful Eight. The West is where land and prosperity have lurked behind every cactus and it continues to represent the undiscovered country of the future. Peter Seibert reveals a place always on the horizon but never quite attainable.