Fall River History Club

wow!

"Bedford Street Where Police Station Now Stands"

From the PD Borden Collection at the Fall River Historical Society.

Philip D. Borden was the City Engineer for the city of Fall River, MA. from 1880-1915.

Love these old images from the PD Borden collection of the Fall River Historical Society

"North Side of Bank Street from Central Church, West"

From the PD Borden Collection at the Fall River Historical Society.

Philip D. Borden was the City Engineer for the city of Fall River, MA. from 1880-1915.

Ghost Signs

Fall River’s ghost signs are fast disappearing.

Before the internet, television, or even radio, a major staple of advertising was the roadside sign. In rural America, the sides of barns were the sign painter’s preferred canvass. But in urban settings such as Fall River, any prominent brick building with blank wall space was a candidate for a colorful product pitch.

Beginning in the last half of the nineteenth century, and lasting through the early 1950s, buildings throughout the country were touting everything from beer to buggy whips. Itinerant painters called “wall dogs” stood on scaffolds or sometimes hung precariously from bosons’ chairs to create what was known as “advertising art.”

Because of the durable lead-based paint used by the early-twentieth-century wall dogs, many of these signs remain visible, if not entirely readable, decades after their creation. In some cities, vintage signs have even been repainted in an attempt to recapture the quaint nostalgia of a bygone era.

Period post cards of Fall River from the early 1900s, show downtown and Flint business districts festooned with signage of all types including many wall paintings. Sadly, urban renewal, Interstate I-195, and the elements have reduced the city’s painted sign population to a handful of faded, ghostly survivors.

Although there may be others that were missed, a quick survey of the city found only two surviving examples of the classic painted building sign. The first, high on an east-facing wall near the corner of Pleasant and Jencks Streets is only partially decipherable. The abbreviated word, “Bros.” followed by the word “clothiers” is barely readable. The name of the brothers who owned the clothing store has been lost to the ravages of time.

The second, on a south facing wall of an East Main Street apartment house has fared better, even retaining a hint of color, helped by the later construction of a weather-shielding building only a few feet from the sign. Along with Coca-Cola, and Mail Pouch To***co, this wall advertised what was arguably once one of the most famous of American products: Uneeda Biscuit.

A product of the National Biscuit Company (NABISCO), the Uneeda Soda Cracker was developed in 1898 and was the first to “seal in the freshness” with its new inter-folded wax paper box lining. Before then, crackers were sold unbranded from barrels and carried home in paper bags. One of the most successful of advertising campaigns ever, Uneeda Biscuit signs adorned buildings all across America, some freshly repainted over and over.

Presumably, Fall River’s ghostly but still legible version of the sign continued to be at least marginally useful to NABISCO up until only a few years ago. In 2007, the Uneeda Biscuit itself became a ghost when it was discontinued by the company.

April 30, 2012
Fall River, Massachusetts

From "Granite, Grit, and Grace: An Exploration of the Fascinating Side Streets of Fall River's History," by William A. Moniz, Fall River Historical Society Press, 2017, pp. 419-420.

To purchase online at our shop: https://fallriverhistorical.org/product/book-frhs-press-granite-grit-and-grace/

Interesting story!

From Main Street in the Eighteen Seventies and Eighties & A Businessman's Reminiscences of Fifty Years, by Thomas Richmond Burrell Sr, published by the Fall River Historical Society, 2019, p. 99.

"The story which I am now going to relate will appear a very strange one and perhaps would form a good plot for a modern mystery novel. Many years ago, the Superintendent of the Merchants Mills was a man named [Jordan K.] Piper (1818-1871), who lived in the little cottage at the south end of the mill. One day, the whole city was startled by the report that Mr. Piper had fallen from the fourth story of the mill and been instantly killed. Well I remember when his son [either Willie F. (b.1859) or George M. Piper (b.1856)] was called out of the school room to be told of the accident. More than thirty years afterward, a citizen who is now living told me that he had a q***r story to tell me. A widow, formerly of Fall River, had become a nurse in a Boston Hospital, and a dying patient told her that he had worked for the Merchants Mills, and that there had been labor trouble and that he had pushed the Superintendent, a man named Piper, out of the open door in the fourth story and killed him.

"At the time I was writing the financial news for the Fall River Globe, and told the story to Frank Kennedy, the editor; he immediately phoned the Boston Globe, of which he was the correspondent. They interviewed the nurse who confirmed the story so far as the confession of her patient was concerned. But, being the widow of a former well-known Fall River citizen, she obtained a promise from the Boston Globe that they would not publish the story because her name would, of course, appear prominently and, if any investigation was made, it would prove very embarrassing to her, and so the whole matter was dropped and will remain a mystery forever."

Purchase online at: https://fallriverhistorical.org/product/book-frhs-press-main-street-in-the-eighteen-seventies-and-eighties/

Finally, a book about Bertha Manchester.

https://www.heraldnews.com/story/news/history/2023/08/29/true-crime-book-fall-river-axe-murder-may-have-affected-borden-trial/70696174007/?fbclid=IwAR1Ppc_2LqzrUTtZn63YnzESOo_IzteQf3fT5vEDsh1xZHKixGOvvQtrs-s

It's not Lizzie Borden: New book looks at the Fall River axe murder you never knew about Fall River, 1890s: A vicious killer has axe in hand and murder in mind. Everyone knows the Lizzie Borden murders, but this is not that case.