Forevermore . . .

The inner courtyard of Richmond's Poe Museum, dated 1737 

Every time I walk into an old house with creaky floorboards I think of the old man’s beating heart . . . you fancy me mad?  No! It is the author of that story who is mad – Edgar Allan Poe! I say this only because of his story, “The Tell Tale Heart,” which I read when I was a mere child of 10 or 11 years old . . .

Little did I know that one day I would live in the city where Edgar Allan Poe grew up and wrote his first poems and stories. Perhaps he had entered this same building which I now entered, an old stone and brick structure with – yes, I say! – creaky floorboards!  It is the oldest standing building in Richmond, VA, built in 1737, now cramped and stowed away (like the old man's body!) on a busy street in the city’s downtown business district.  This unassuming building, now called the Poe Museum, keeps forevermore the artifacts of Edgar Allan Poe’s life . . . and death.

Poe never actually lived in the old building, but “he probably walked by here a lot,” our tour guide told us. My daughter and I came here on a beautiful sunny day to learn of Poe’s life in Richmond and to witness the just-opened special exhibit, “The Raven, Terror and Death.”

It is downright criminal that I and many other school children grew up thinking that this scary author haled from New England.  He may have been born in Massachusetts (he was), but his transient theatre parents moved to Richmond when he was only two years old. Baltimore takes an unwarranted claim on Poe’s life as well, only because Poe lived there for a paltry three years in adulthood after he married his 13-year-old cousin.  Also, Poe happened to die there on October 7, 1849 – that is, 162 years ago today! – under very dubious circumstances while en route from Richmond to Pennsylvania.  More on this later . . .

 But the only rightful claimant to this author is Richmond, VA, I say!  Though rarely mentioned in biographies (and that’s a mystery to me), Poe grew up in Richmond and lived a good portion of his adult life here too.  Unfortunately, the houses where Poe lived in Richmond have all been demolished . . .

Nevertheless, this city provided all the elements of a grim foundation for Poe’s future instincts in storytelling.  His father promptly abandoned the family once they had moved to Richmond.  His mother died of consumption a year later. The three Poe children were parceled out to various families, one in Baltimore and two in Richmond.  Young Edgar was taken in, though never formally adopted, by the wealthy Allan family of Richmond.  The Allan’s wealth came from tobacco and slaves, as did all Virginia wealth back then.  Thus, he became Edgar Allan Poe.

Though he grew up in wealthy surroundings, he was never to experience the independence of wealth.  John Allan seemingly hated the young Edgar . . . and his wife Francis, though loving, died from consumption when he was still a boy.  Allan sent Edgar to the University of Virginia, but withheld tuition once he got there.  And Poe was soon expelled for drinking and gambling . . .

Back in Richmond, penniless, he came up with the idea of creating a literary journal in which his own stories and poems would be featured.  He charged $5 per issue, which in the early 1800s must have been as outlandish as the stories he wrote.  The office where he wrote and edited this literary journal still stands in downtown Richmond, but is now called “Rouge Gentlemen’s Club” – and it has nothing to do with literary concerns, or even gentlemen, one might say. 

This bust of Poe was stolen and taken to imbibe a few . . .

 There is a bust of Poe in the courtyard of the Poe Museum, which our tour guide said was stolen one night by a person who proceeded to take it to the Rouge Gentlemen’s Club where said-thief bought the marble bust a few drinks, then left it on the bar stool to fend for itself.  An honest bar attendant returned it to the Poe Museum a few weeks later with no hard feelings on either side. This is the kind of tidbit you can only pick up from a guided tour in which you and your daughter are the only two people in attendance.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Since we had an hour “to kill” before our tour actually started, my daughter and I went over to nearby Shockoe Hill cemetery where many people in Poe’s life and literary career are buried.

The gravesite of Poe's beloved Jane Stanard, or "Helen"

Jane Stanard is a woman whom Poe loved dearly, though Jane was married and much older than Poe. He was only a teen when she died, and it is said he would visit the grave to weep and wail upon her gravestone.  His poem, “To Helen,” is famously written for her.  They say he changed her name to Helen because “Jane” had little rhythmic value to the budding poet.  In compassion for him, I draped my own body across Jane’s gravestone to feel the cold jutting rock on my cheek just as Poe must have felt it.  I tried not to disturb the wilted red rose someone had placed there.

Across the walkway from Jane, rest Poe’s foster parents, John and Francis Allan.  I imagine Poe coming here to spit (or worse) upon the gravesite of John Allan who ruthlessly left all his wealth to his numerous illegitimate children and not one penny to the poverty-stricken Edgar.

Farther down the way lay the remains of the woman to whom he was engaged twice – Sarah Elmira Royster.  Her wealthy Richmond family did everything in their power to break off the engagement, such as intercepting letters between them while he was in the army, and convincing their daughter he had abandoned her and that she should marry an upstanding Richmonder by the last name of Shelton.  Poe agonized to learn of her marriage to Shelton when he returned to Richmond to marry her.  Many of his poems and short stories include the names Elmira, Lenora, Eleanor, even Annabel Lee – and these are all in tribute to his love, Sarah Elmira.

Our tour guide said there might have been a happy ending to this love affair because the two were engaged a second time about 20 years later, after Sarah Elmira’s husband died.  Her family remained in opposition to the marriage.  That’s when great mystery begins – for Poe died unexpectedly in Baltimore only 10 days before the marriage date. He was found wearing someone else’s clothes and lying face down in a gutter in mental delirium.  He was 40 years old. The word he kept repeating was Reynolds, Reynolds, Reynolds . . . and this is another famous family name in Richmond – think Reynolds Aluminum . . .

The grim mustachioed Poe

Only seven people came to Poe’s funeral, most of those hospital personnel who were needed to carry the casket.  His betrothed was not among them.  Our tour guide told us there are about 30 theories as to how Poe died in Baltimore – everything from rabies to murder.  One of those theories inculcates the brothers of his beloved Sarah Elmira, who may have followed Poe to Baltimore and drugged him.  A movie is coming out in 2012, starring John Cusack as Poe, which will catalog Poe’s life and the many unsolved theories of his death.  I hope John Cusack is not sporting a mustache because our tour guide told us that Poe rarely wore one.  The iconic mustachioed photo of Poe which we all recognize, of which the original is in the Poe Museum, was taken four days after an attempted suicide – and the grimness of it bears little resemblance to his other photos in which he was clean shaven and somewhat “brighter.” Our tour guide explained that this grim photo became famous because Poe’s decrepit sister, who also lived in Richmond, had numerous copies made and forged his signature on each one for sale after his death!

The morning after our tour of the Poe Museum and visit to Shockoe Hill cemetery, I read in our local newspaper that a body with a garbage bag taped over its head had been found in a warehouse just outside the cemetery where my daughter and I had traipsed through the centuries-old knotted pathways looking for traces of the life of Edgar Allan Poe.  Hideous!  as Poe would say.  I sat at my kitchen table pondering such mysteries . . .