350 Union Street, Joseph Grinnell, 1852

350 Union Street, Joseph Grinnell, 1852

The lot on the corner of Cottage Street was purchased from Arnold by Joseph Grinnell, who built this home in 1852. He sold the house in 1853 to Barnabas S. Perkins, a whaling merchant, and later a wholesale grocer in the firm of Haskins and Perkins. The most famous owner of this house, however, was Hosea Morrill Knowlton, prosecutor at the trial of Lizzie Borden, the Fall River woman accused of murdering her parents. (Despite popular children’s rhymes to the contrary, history records show that she was found innocent). As a result of the notoriety of the case, Knowlton subsequently became State Attorney General, a post he held until his death in 1902.