Haunted Houses & Ghost Tours in Fall River

The history

Fall River is a mill city that a single family helped build and then, in one August week of 1892, made infamous. The city sits in Bristol County along the eastern shore of Mount Hope Bay at the mouth of the Taunton River, on the Rhode Island line. Its Wikipedia article records a population of 94,000 at the 2020 census, the tenth-largest city in Massachusetts. The name comes from the Quequechan River, which flows through the city before draining into the bay — Quequechan is a Wampanoag word believed to mean "falling river" or "leaping/falling waters." The town was incorporated in 1803 and became a city in 1854. Its official motto, "We'll Try," dates to the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1843, which destroyed much of the town center.

Through the 19th century Fall River gained recognition as a leading textile manufacturing center in the United States, and the Borden family stood near the center of that rise. Colonel Richard Borden established the Fall River Iron Works in 1821, began regular steamship service to Providence in 1827, and constructed the Metacomet Mill in 1847, today the city's oldest remaining textile mill. The American Print Works, established in 1835 by Holder Borden, became under Borden family leadership the largest and most important textile company in the city, employing thousands at its peak. The Bordens were, in other words, Fall River royalty — mill owners, merchants and civic fixtures — which is precisely why what happened at 92 Second Street landed the way it did.

Andrew Borden, a wealthy businessman, had bought the house at 92 Second Street in 1872. Built in 1845 as a two-unit residence, it was converted under his ownership into a single-family home for Andrew, his second wife Abby, his daughters Emma and Lizzie, and a maid who lived in the attic — a middle-class house, its Wikipedia article notes, with no indoor plumbing or electricity, that Andrew chose for its proximity to his business holdings on Main Street. On August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered in that house. The case became one of America's most famous historical mysteries: Lizzie Borden was tried for the murders of her father and stepmother and acquitted, and the killings remain unsolved. The Fall River article states the outcome plainly — Fall River is known for the Lizzie Borden case — and after her acquittal Lizzie bought another house on French Street that she named Maplecroft, where she lived until her death on June 1, 1927. The street number of the murder house was changed from 92 to 230 Second Street in 1896.

The family's other Fall River address is its last one. Oak Grove Cemetery, at 765 Prospect Street, was established in 1855 and laid out by local architect Josiah Brown in the planned rural-garden style of Mount Auburn Cemetery, with Gothic Revival elements including an entrance arch of locally quarried Fall River granite. It grew from 47 acres to more than 120, holds the city's Civil War Monument, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. It is the resting place of the city's mill-owning elite — and of the whole Borden cast: Andrew and Abby, Lizzie and Emma, and Lizzie's defense attorney Andrew Jackson Jennings, who won her acquittal.

One honest gap belongs in this history. The Fall River Historical Society, founded in 1921 and holder of the world's largest collection of Lizzie Borden material, is the city's Borden authority — but its own site announces that the museum and archive are closed for a major infrastructure project and will reopen in Spring 2027. It is a source for this guide, not, this season, a place to visit.

The legend

This section is folklore — reported by the house's own operator and by paranormal writers, and never asserted as fact here.

The Lizzie Borden House markets itself, in its own words, as "America's Most Haunted House," and describes "a place known for its unexplained haunting activity" alongside its documented history. That is the operator's framing, and this guide reports it as such. The house's Wikipedia article is more careful, and this guide follows the article: tours of the house often refer to the possibility of ghostly activity, and in their book The Ghost Chronicles, self-described medium Maureen Wood and self-described paranormal scientist Ron Kolek describe experiencing ghostly events in the house. The same article gives the counterweight in the same breath: paranormal investigator Joe Nickell reports that these claims rest on unverifiable personal feelings of a presence, or on well-understood techniques such as table-tipping and the Ouija board, which involve the ideomotor effect rather than a spirit. Both halves of that paragraph are the record. The murders of August 4, 1892 are documented history; everything said to walk the house since is folklore, labelled as folklore wherever it appears below.

Oak Grove Cemetery, notably, carries no equivalent legend in the sources collected for this guide. Its tour operator presents the cemetery through history and true crime — the Borden graves, war veterans, a famous ballplayer — and publishes no ghost lore for it. This guide says so plainly rather than inventing atmosphere for a burial ground whose documented residents are interesting enough.

Haunted today

Hountix lists 3 places in Fall River. Seasonal attractions keep their own open dates, so check each business's own site before you go.

• Fall River Nocturnal Historic Haunted Landmark & Museum — haunted attraction, 550 Second St, Fall River, MA 02720
• Fall River Old Town Historic Haunted Landmark & Museum — haunted attraction, 554 Second St, Fall River, MA 02720
• Lizzie Borden House Historic Landmark & Ghost Tours — haunted attraction, 230 Second Street, Fall River, MA 02721

Attraction stories

Lizzie Borden House

The house at 230 Second Street is the rare haunted attraction whose horror is entirely documented. Its Wikipedia article gives the skeleton: a Greek Revival wood-frame house built in 1845 as a two-unit residence, purchased by Andrew Borden in 1872 and converted to a single-family home, the site of the 1892 unsolved double murder of Andrew and Abby Borden. Andrew refused the era's new technologies — no indoor plumbing, no electricity, a two-stall privy in the basement and a chamber pot under every bed — and chose the house for its walk to his Main Street businesses. After Lizzie's trial and acquittal, the house passed through private hands until it opened as a bed and breakfast in 1996 under Martha McGinn and Ronald Evans; according to McGinn, the room where Abby Borden was found murdered was the most requested of its bedrooms. It was sold in May 2021 to Lance Zaal, owner of US Ghost Adventures, for $2 million, with Zaal stating he would keep it operating as a bed and breakfast and expand the Borden-themed activities around it.

The house's own site describes what that operation looks like now. It is open daily from 10:00 AM to midnight as an inn and museum. The 90-minute house tours, offered daily in the late morning and afternoon, are the only tours that visit all of the rooms, including the room where Abby Borden was murdered, and the site notes they include, alongside the history, "eerie stories of real hauntings from guests who have stayed here" — the operator's attribution, reported here as the operator's. The evening program splits in two: nightly ghost tours that walk out into Fall River to other haunted locations and hear their stories, and a two-hour ghost hunt from 10 PM to midnight on the first floor and in the basement, with ghost-hunting equipment provided and shared within each group. Overnight guests can book rooms including the Lizzie & Emma Suite, and an overnight basement ghost hunt runs from midnight. The site also maintains a Hauntings section and sells the full apparatus of the legend — down to a haunted doll named Lily in its gift shop — none of which this guide asserts as anything but the business's own presentation.

The honest summary is the Wikipedia article's own balance: this is a meticulously documented crime scene that has operated as a tourist attraction for three decades, whose tours refer to the possibility of ghostly activity, whose paranormal claims a named skeptic attributes to suggestion and the ideomotor effect, and whose operator calls it America's Most Haunted House. Visitors can hold any of those three frames; the house, the murders and the acquittal are real in all of them.

*Website: https://www.lizzie-borden.com/*

Sources

• Wikipedia, Fall River, Massachusetts (city anchor — Bristol County city on Mount Hope Bay at the mouth of the Taunton River, 2020 population 94,000, Quequechan River name meaning, town incorporated 1803 and city 1854, "We'll Try" motto from the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1843, leading 19th-century textile center, Richard Borden's Iron Works of 1821 and Metacomet Mill of 1847, American Print Works of 1835, and the statement that Fall River is known for the Lizzie Borden case) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_River,_Massachusetts
• Wikipedia, Lizzie Borden House (anchor — Greek Revival house built 1845 at 230 Second Street, originally 92 Second Street until the 1896 renumbering, purchased by Andrew Borden in 1872 and converted to a single-family residence without indoor plumbing or electricity, site of the 1892 unsolved double murder of Andrew and Abby Borden, Lizzie's trial and acquittal and her move to Maplecroft where she died June 1, 1927, bed and breakfast since 1996 under McGinn and Evans with Abby's room the most requested, sold May 2021 to Lance Zaal of US Ghost Adventures for $2 million, tours referring to the possibility of ghostly activity, Wood and Kolek's ghost claims and Joe Nickell's ideomotor-effect counterpoint) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Borden_House
• Wikipedia, Oak Grove Cemetery (Fall River, Massachusetts) (anchor — established 1855 at 765 Prospect Street, designed by Josiah Brown in the rural-garden style, Gothic Revival entrance arch of Fall River granite, expanded from 47 to over 120 acres, National Register of Historic Places 1983, city owned and operated, Borden family burials including Andrew, Abby, Lizzie, Emma and Sarah Borden and defense attorney Andrew Jackson Jennings, plus Richard Borden, Lewis Howard Latimer, James Holehouse, Charlie Buffinton and Mary Evelyn Hitchcock) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Grove_Cemetery_ (Fall_River,_Massachusetts)
• Lizzie Borden House, official site (the house's own presentation — "America's Most Haunted House," the August 4, 1892 mystery, open daily 10:00 AM to midnight as an inn and museum, house tours, ghost tours, ghost hunts, cemetery tours and the Hauntings section; collected 2026-10-30) — https://www.lizzie-borden.com/
• Lizzie Borden House, Tours (operator's own schedules — 90-minute house tours daily 10:30 AM–4:30 PM as the only tour visiting all rooms including where Abby Borden was murdered, nightly ghost tours, two-hour ghost hunts nightly 10 PM–midnight on the first floor and basement with equipment provided, overnight basement ghost hunt; collected 2026-10-30) — https://lizzie-borden.com/tours/
• Lizzie Borden House, Oak Grove Cemetery Tour (operator's own page — first guided tour of Oak Grove Cemetery, launched March 2024, Borden autopsy site and family graves, veterans, an 1880s baseball player and an author-explorer among the stops, about one hour and 1.5 miles with a 30-minute extended option, meeting inside the cemetery entrance, cemetery open 7 AM–3 PM daily, guided tours Monday–Friday 11 AM and weekends 1 PM; collected 2026-10-30) — https://lizzie-borden.com/oak-grove/
• Let's Roam, Fall River Ghost Tour: Fall River Ghost Hunt (operator's own page — app-guided hunt, 1.5–2 hours, 3.00 miles, start anytime, stops at Kennedy Park, the Lizzie Borden House, Borden Flats Lighthouse, the Fall River Historical Society and Oak Grove Cemetery, 1,000+ completions claimed; collected 2026-10-30) — https://www.letsroam.com/ghost-tour/fall-river-ma
• Fall River Historical Society, official site (founded 1921, world's largest collection of Lizzie Borden material, and the society's own notice that its museum and archive are closed for a major infrastructure project until Spring 2027; collected 2026-10-30) — http://fallriverhistorical.org/