The ax was found during the demolition of a downtown building. Could it be the ax? It looked old enough, its wooden handle partially decayed. And what was that stain on the blade? Could it be, could it possibly be….???

Probably not. After all, that ax brought into The Journal’s Fall River bureau many years ago was just one in a series of axes pulled from basements and construction sites and brought forward as the possible murder weapon in a case celebrated on stage, in song and on golf balls that bear the words “Keep Hacking Away.”

Lizzie Borden continues to move through Fall River, like a batty maiden aunt who acted up some years back but has since settled into a kind of genteel notoriety.

And she was, and is, a Fall River woman. She lived here and she did or did not fillet her father and stepmother here on a hot August day in 1892. She left her city with all that it could make of her.

She does not belong in Salem. Salem has no claim, just a cheesy grab for Lizzie’s blood-stained residuals.

When a shop called The True Story of Lizzie Borden opened in Salem, it did not go over well in the house on Second Street where Andrew Borden and wife Abby were done in 117 years ago.

Lee-ann Wilber, owner of the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast, heard about the Salem pretenders from friends.

“I think it’s important to keep her here in Fall River,” says Wilber, who is originally from Warwick.

It is. It’s vital. It’s a matter of hometown identity ...

Wilber took action. She went to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and got the marketing rights to the Lizzie Borden name. The folks in Salem agreed to change the name of their venture to The 40 Whacks Museum.

Lizzie is where she belongs and where she continues as a brand recognized the world over. People from Germany, Russia, Australia and points in between have come to the old mill town to stand and perhaps stay in the house where the Borden murders occurred. As many as 150 people have come through the house in a day.

Wilber is also having as much of the gift shop merchandise as possible, including coffee mugs and T-shirts, made in Fall River.

It is a small, side-street success story. Lizzie is not subject to prevailing economic trends.

Wilber first saw the house when she went there to celebrate Valentine’s Day with her boyfriend six years ago. It was put up for sale a few months later. She decided it was an opportunity to do something a little different.

“How often do you get the chance to preserve a piece of history?” she says.

So she preserves. And she promotes. She says it is sometimes difficult to come up with ideas for the gift shop. A cocktail might have had something to do with the idea for the golf balls, which bear a picture of Lizzie beneath those doubly meaningful words. And the bobble-head dolls were already there when she bought the house.

You can take a tour. You can stay overnight and you can lie in bed and wonder if Lizzie’s old house is haunted.

Lizzie was acquitted of the murders despite pretty damning evidence. Some historians suggest that she was acquitted on the grounds that a proper Victorian young woman just wouldn’t do such a thing.

Lizzie lived until 1927, moving to pricier digs in Fall River’s Highlands section for her final years. She lived quietly and died a wealthy woman.

And Lee-ann Wilber has done us all a service by keeping Lizzie in her proper place. She just wouldn’t be at home anywhere but Fall River.

bkerr@projo.com