The Jennings Journals 1892: The unpublished notes and documents from the files of Lizzie Borden’s Defense Attorney, Andrew Jackson Jennings by Andrew Jackson Jennings

The Jennings Journals is an integration of two very different journals kept by Lizzie Borden’s lawyer Andrew J. Jennings. The first one is composed of handwritten entries in a nearly alphabetical fashion. The entries consist of notes, newspaper clipping notations, and interviews conducted with the individuals included. The second journal is a collection of newspaper clippings from August 4 to August 11, 1892, all, of course, relating to the Borden murder case.

In 2011, the estate of Edward Saunders Waring, grandson of Andrew J. Jennings, presented the Historical Society with his grandfather’s collection of two journals relative to the Borden case, preserved by his family through three generations. He bequeathed the volumes to the Society, certain in our expertise in working with nineteenth century documents, letters, and diaries. The work on the journals has taken ten years to complete.

The notes in the first journal were arranged somewhat alphabetically and appear in two different hands—Andrew J. Jennings and Arthur Sherman Phillips, a member of the defense team. Included in most of these entries are citations to portions of news reports located in a second journal, which are gathered by date and span the first eight days of the event, from August 4 to August 11, 1892.

Not only does this book contain the transcriptions of these notes in the order that they were included in the handwritten journal, but also includes the snippets of cross-referenced news reports that the lawyers felt important enough to note. In this way, the reader will have a cohesive read of both journals incorporated into one. Additional brief biographical narrative has been included by the editors, where appropriate and known, to place the person or event in historical context in connection to the case.

To further enhance the collection’s usefulness as a research tool, two extensive glossaries have been included. Containing biographical and historical information pertinent to the documents, they provide an important dimension to the collection.