Richmond Justly Hails Poe As 'Son'

Tragedy Stalks Poe's Love Affairs;
Death Ends Career After Visit 'Home'

By Georgia Dickenson Wardlow

[This is the concluding article on the life and carerr of Edgar Allan Poe in Richmond and Virginia--Editor's Note.]

From that sudden intake of beauty to him the incarnation of woman glorified--even more--deified--came Poe's supreme achievement of "the rhythmical creation of beauty"--his own definition of a poem. We know it in his poem of sheer beauty and melody which immortalized this meeting.

            TO HELEN

"Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

"On desperate seas, long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.

"Lo! in yon billiant window-niche,
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah! Psyche from the regions
Which are Holy Land!"

That she was kind and loving to her son's young friend, many know, and that her untimely death in April 1824--at the age of 31, both shocked and saddened him, is certain. But adventure came, and a very real sorrow was lost in excitement.

In the fall of 1824, the City of Richmond and entire State of Virginia was preparing dramatically, and looking forward eagerly, to the approaching visit of the Marquis de LaFayette. Intense excitement electrified the atmosphere everywhere, and none felt the thrill of the coming event more than the young men of Burke's Academy. A military company known as the "Richmond Junior Volunteers" was organizaed and provided with uniforms. Among the ranking officers of this proud little battalion was Lieutenant Edgar Allan Poe.

LaFayette, clad in short trousers and cocked hat, arrived by steamer from Norfolk. There was a great and gala procession with young Poe among the Richmond Junior Volunteers whose swords were at salute as they passed LaFayette in review. Poe was no doubt noticed because of his striking features and vivid brunette coloring, and personally pointed out to the distinguished Frenchman as the grandson of General David Poe of Baltimore noted for his distinguished Revolutionary record. What influence this military event had on Poe is a matter of conjecture. It was less than three years later that he joined the army--probably more from necessity than choice.

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At the corner of Second and Franklin Streets--later known as Linden Row --there was once an "enchanted garden" dear to the heart of Edgar Allan Poe. Fragrant with brilliant flowers, and magic with the sound of a gurgling fountain, it often was a retreat from the stormy scenes that were taking place in John Allan's newest mansion at Fifth and Main, which he had bought at auction in June, 1825. This garden became the trysting place of Poe and his young sweetheart, Sarah Elmira Royster, the daughter of one of the Allan's neighbors, and heroine of Poe's "Tamerlane." In his poem, The Landscape Garden," he has left a never-fading picture of its witching beauty and amaranthine delights.

Just before Poe left for the University of Virginia in February 1826, Elmira became engaged to him. The love-affair was frustrated by John Allan and Elmira's parents, during Poe's absense from Richmond. Nor were his letters from the university ever allowed to reach her, but were opened by unfeeling hands.

The second session of the University of Virginia was well under way when Poe was entered as a student on St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 1826. Thomas Jefferson, its illustrious founder, was yet alive. Poe mentions in one of his letters to John Allan from the university that the Rotunda was yet unfinished, and that books had just been removed to the library. Poe's room was Number Thirteen, West Range--(not perhaps without its unlucky significance), and is now used as a memorial to him.

Here Poe spent many long hours, pouring over the poets, and here too, he began "Tamerlane." This first appeared in print in the form of a tiny volume entitled "Tamerlane and Other Poems. By a Bostonian." It was printed during the summer of 1827, after he had been driven from the Allan home in Richmond, and was in Boston facing starvation. The printer was one Calvin F. S. Thomas, a young and obscure printer in Boston. This was Poe's first publishing venture, and remained virtually unheard of until after his death. Today, only five copies are known to exist, and these, valued at thousands of dollars are in the possession of private collectors, with the exception of one, which is in the British Museum.

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When Edgar Allan Poe was withdrawn from the University of Virginia by John Allan, and soon thereafter driven from the Allan home (March 19, 1827)--despite the tears and entreaties of the devoted foster-Mother Frances Valentine Allan in behalf of her adopted son. Poe, having no place to go, and without funds or extra clothing, sought temporary refuge in the Courthouse Tavern in Richmond, from where he wrote John Allan several notes imploring his help. In all probability he left Richmond, finally, on a coastwise vessel for Norfolk.

Frances Allan died February 28, 1829, and though Poe was sent for, he arrived in Richmond too late for the funeral. He returned to Richmond again, sometime, during the latter part of 1829, and was also in Richmond in January and May of 1830, leaving on the latter date to visit relatives in Baltimore, before entering West Point as a cadet, in June of that year, where he was officially enrolled on July 1, 1830. His ill-fated term at the Military Academy was similar to his experience in college, and early in 1831, his career as a "West Pointer" ended.

From then on, until the day of his death, Poe was a pathetic, peripatetic person. In 1831, soon after he left West Point, Elam Bliss in New York brought out "Poems, by Edgar A. Poe. Second Edition." As in his first signed volume, Poe signed himself Edgar A. Poe which remained his characteristic signature through life; the "Allan" familiar to readers being purely in keeping with the taste of his biographers.

This last volume contained the rarest and best poetry that had yet appeared in America--"Israfel," "to Helen," "The Sleeper," and "The City in the Sea." Despite the intrinsic and literary worth of his poems already published, Poe lived in abject poverty in Baltimore for the next four years.

Not until 1835 did his fortunes change for the better, and his return to Richmond come about.

In a contest conducted by the Baltimore Saturday Visitor, Poe won the prize with his "M. S. Found in a Bottle." One of the judges, J. P. Kennedy, led to a communication between Poe and Thomas W. White who owned the (then struggling) Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Poe immediately began writing for it, and during the summer went to Richmond to assist Mr. White with its publication. With the December issue he became Mr. White's editor of the Messenger.

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Mrs. Maria Clemm, Poe's aunt, and her 14-year-old daughter, Virginia, came from Baltimore to Richmond soon thereafter, and on May 16, 1836, Poe and his first cousin were married in the parlor of Mrs. Yarrington's Boarding House, which stood at the corner of Bank and Eleventh Streets in Richmond. The ceremony was performed by the Reverend Amasa Converse in the presence of a large number of boarders, Mr. White, his daughter, and others. Poe and Virginia left for Petersburg where they spent their honeymoon, but soon he was back at his desk at the Southern Literary Messenger, where he threw himself vigorously into his work. From a poorly edited, provincial magazine, within a year under Poe's editorship, it became a widely read and discussed magazine of increasing importance, with a subscription list of between 3,500 and 4,000.

Despite his success at his post, Poe and Mr. White severed business relations, and in January, 1837, Poe relinquished the position of editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. Years of severe privation followed. He had gone from Richmond to New York, then to Philadelphia in 1838, where he lived for six years. But the twists of fate that marred his entire life, were still to be felt. From 1839 to 1840, he was employed as an editor of Burton's Magazine, and the two years following he edited Gorham's Magazine.

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But sadder days were ahead--as always in Poe's life. Both he and Virginia were fast declining in health. Virginia, frail patient little wife that she had always been developed consumption, and died at the age of 24 in Fordham, in the little vine-clad cottage Poe had rented, and which today is a shrine to the poet.

His return to Richmond, and last visit, was in 1849, when he lectured to a small group of people at the old Exchange Hotel, which stood at the corner of Fourteenth and Franklin Streets. Had he come back in sheer desperation, or did the last dying embers of romance left in his weary mind and heavy heart make him think that perhaps, in this lovely old city of his youth, he might recapture some of the happiness--if fleeting happiness--that belonged to his dead and gone past? Perhaps some strange fantasy told him that some old friend would see and hear him, and come up and welcome him back as Edgar of old.

What emotions there were in the heart of Edgar Allan Poe that night of his lecture, no man will ever know. He died on his way back to New York, after being found in an unconscious condition, and taken to a hospital, where a merciful death came without him even regaining consciousness, on October 7, 1849. He was buried quietly, without the presence of Mrs. Clemm, the only living person who loved him, his remains being laid to rest outside of the Westminister Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, on October 8, 1849.

In dreams and in truth, Edgar Allan Poe had come home. The only home he had ever known--when he returned to Richmond for this last time. Now at last, and forever, a home of peace and permanency awaited him.