Both commemorate the notorious case of Lizzie Borden, who in 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts, was accused of the axe murder of Andrew and Abby Borden, her father and stepmother.
The murder and the subsequent trial was a cause célèbre not just in New England, but throughout much of the country. Lizzie, whose troubled relationship with both her father and his second wife was clear to all, was widely believed to be guilty as charged, but her lawyer won the day and she was acquitted.
Nobody else was ever arrested or charged in connection with the murders, but most believed that Lizzie had been the killer.
Over the years, all sorts of theories have been put forward as to what really happened and why – among them a suggestion that Lizzie had been sexually abused by her father, and a literary claim that Lizzie had been caught by her detested stepmother in a 'lesbian tryst' with the maid, Bridget Sullivan.
A June 19, 1853 issue of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, in which Lizzie Borden is depicted with another member of her defence counsel, former Massachusetts governor, George D Robinson.
The latter scenario was put forward in Lizzie, a 1984 novel by the well-known writer of crime fiction, film screenplays etc, Ed McBain – though in this case using another of his pseudonyms, Evan Hunter.
After the trial, Lizzie and her elder sister, Emma, chose to remain in Fall River, despite being ostracized by the local community.
Lizzie died there in 1927, and Emma passed away only days later - though she had years before fallen out with her sister and moved away. In her will Lizzie left what was then a very substantial sum, $30,000, to the Fall River Animal Rescue League and, perhaps significantly, made provision for the perpetual care of her father's grave only.
Dated just eight days after the murders and sold for $13,000 (£9850) in the Heritage sale was a document in which Lizzie, awaiting trial, grants temporary power of attorney to her sister. It is signed by both Lizzie and Andrew Jennings, the family lawyer who led the team that got her off the charge.
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.
