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Acolyte, v. 2, issue 1, whole no. 5, Fall 1943
Page 5
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HOMES AND SHRINES OF POE by H. P. Lovecraft (Note: This article originally was published in the Winter 1934 issue of The Californian, an NAPA magazine, and is reprinted here through the courtesy of Hyman Bradofsky and August Derleth.) Because of Poe's migratory life, the number of houses and sites associated with him is very great. Many are known, but only a few are properly marked or restored as shrines. The site of the cheap boarding house in Boston's South End, where in 1809 he was born to a pair of strolling players, bears a bronze tablet with the simple facts; and at one time the function near it--Broadway and Carver Street--was named "Edgar Allan Poe Square". In 1811 Poe's mother, then acting in Richmond, died and left him to be adopted by the wealthy local merchant John Allan. She was then stopping at a small brick cottage in the rear of the theatrical boarding-house o the northwest corner of Main and 23rd Streets. This cottage (and the boarding-house as well) is still standing though unmarked. The district, inhabited by negroes, is very squalid. Mrs. Poe was buried in St. John's churchyard at Broad and 24th Streets, and her grave was suitably marked in 1928. The Allan home into which the child was taken, a three-story brick house at 14th Street and Tobacco Alley, is still standing, though long ago converted into a shop and now deserted and unmarked. The Poe sites in England and Scotland, where young Edgar was taken by his foster-parents and where he remained from 1815 to 1820, are not marked or generally known. The school at Stoke-Newington, so vividly described in the story William Wilson, has long been demolished. When the Allans returned to Richmond, their first permanent home--after a summer at the bygone and uncommemorated house of Mr. Allan's partner at Franklin and Second Street--was at Clay and Fifth Streets. This house has vanished, and the site is unmarked. In 1825 Mr. Allan purchased the mansion called Moldavia at Main and Fifth Streets, and it is there that the most important crisis in Poe's life occurred. This house also is demolished without the marking of the site. Poe's brief period at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville is, fortunately, well commemorated. His room at 13 West Range is fitted up as it was during his tenancy, and above the door is a plaque reading "EDGAR ALLAN POE--MDCCCXXVI--DOMUS PARVA MAGMNI POETAE". After Poe's breach with his guardian, he entered the army as a common soldier; and many of the military landmarks connected with him--Fort Independence in Boston Harbour, Fort Moultrie or Sullivan's Island in Charleston Harbour, and Fortress Monroe, Virginia--survive, though without Poe tablets. Discharged from the army, Poe stayed for a time with his blood-relatives in Baltimore. The house was in Mechanics Roe, Milk Street, and has vanished without commemoration. In 1830, after a brief reinstatement in the Allan home, Poe went to West Point; but no marker remains to record his sojourn in Room 28, South Barracks. After he prematurely left the Academy he returned to the Milk Street house in Baltimore. Thence, in the autumn of 1832, he removed with his relatives to a dormer-windowed brick house at 3 Amity Street, which is still standing though unmarked. In 1835 Poe went to Richmond with his aunt Mrs. Clemm and her daughter Virginia, having married the latter. The family lived at a boarding-house in Bank Street, Capitol Square, which has disappeared --5--
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HOMES AND SHRINES OF POE by H. P. Lovecraft (Note: This article originally was published in the Winter 1934 issue of The Californian, an NAPA magazine, and is reprinted here through the courtesy of Hyman Bradofsky and August Derleth.) Because of Poe's migratory life, the number of houses and sites associated with him is very great. Many are known, but only a few are properly marked or restored as shrines. The site of the cheap boarding house in Boston's South End, where in 1809 he was born to a pair of strolling players, bears a bronze tablet with the simple facts; and at one time the function near it--Broadway and Carver Street--was named "Edgar Allan Poe Square". In 1811 Poe's mother, then acting in Richmond, died and left him to be adopted by the wealthy local merchant John Allan. She was then stopping at a small brick cottage in the rear of the theatrical boarding-house o the northwest corner of Main and 23rd Streets. This cottage (and the boarding-house as well) is still standing though unmarked. The district, inhabited by negroes, is very squalid. Mrs. Poe was buried in St. John's churchyard at Broad and 24th Streets, and her grave was suitably marked in 1928. The Allan home into which the child was taken, a three-story brick house at 14th Street and Tobacco Alley, is still standing, though long ago converted into a shop and now deserted and unmarked. The Poe sites in England and Scotland, where young Edgar was taken by his foster-parents and where he remained from 1815 to 1820, are not marked or generally known. The school at Stoke-Newington, so vividly described in the story William Wilson, has long been demolished. When the Allans returned to Richmond, their first permanent home--after a summer at the bygone and uncommemorated house of Mr. Allan's partner at Franklin and Second Street--was at Clay and Fifth Streets. This house has vanished, and the site is unmarked. In 1825 Mr. Allan purchased the mansion called Moldavia at Main and Fifth Streets, and it is there that the most important crisis in Poe's life occurred. This house also is demolished without the marking of the site. Poe's brief period at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville is, fortunately, well commemorated. His room at 13 West Range is fitted up as it was during his tenancy, and above the door is a plaque reading "EDGAR ALLAN POE--MDCCCXXVI--DOMUS PARVA MAGMNI POETAE". After Poe's breach with his guardian, he entered the army as a common soldier; and many of the military landmarks connected with him--Fort Independence in Boston Harbour, Fort Moultrie or Sullivan's Island in Charleston Harbour, and Fortress Monroe, Virginia--survive, though without Poe tablets. Discharged from the army, Poe stayed for a time with his blood-relatives in Baltimore. The house was in Mechanics Roe, Milk Street, and has vanished without commemoration. In 1830, after a brief reinstatement in the Allan home, Poe went to West Point; but no marker remains to record his sojourn in Room 28, South Barracks. After he prematurely left the Academy he returned to the Milk Street house in Baltimore. Thence, in the autumn of 1832, he removed with his relatives to a dormer-windowed brick house at 3 Amity Street, which is still standing though unmarked. In 1835 Poe went to Richmond with his aunt Mrs. Clemm and her daughter Virginia, having married the latter. The family lived at a boarding-house in Bank Street, Capitol Square, which has disappeared --5--
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