Richmond Justly Hails Poe As 'Son'

Outstanding Events in Poet's Tragic Life
Center In This City He Called "Home"

By Georgia Dickenson Wardlaw

[This is the first of two articles detailing the Richmond and Virginia career of Edgar Allan Poe, a timely story in view of his approaching birthday anniversary January 19, and the local observance of "Poe Week."--The Editor.]

"Edgar Allan Poe was not a Bostonian, despite the claim, largely one of sentiment and convenience, on the title page of his first book. By education, association, preference, and prejudice, Poe was a Virginian, and throughout all his wanderings Richmond was his home."
                             ---Hervey Allen in "Israfel."

 

 

In the chaotic career of that ill-fated genius, Edgar Allan Poe, there stands out one place, and one alone, that ever remained home to him. It was neither the Boston of his birth, nor the Fordham of his famed cottage; the Baltimore of his forbears, or the New York or Philadelphia of his literary efforts, but a cultural little Southern city, one day to become the capital of the Confederacy--Richmond, Va.

Here occurred the tragic death of his actress-mother, Elizabeth Arnold Poe, on December 8, 1811, and her burial in old St. John's Churchyard; young Edgar's subsequent adoption two days later by John Allan, a prominent and wealthy merchant of the town, and his kindly wife, Frances Valentine Allan--and the taking simultaneously, of Poe's younger sister, Rosalie, by the Mackensie family of Richmond.

In this classic old Southern city Edgar Allan Poe spent the most important and impressionistic years of his life--years that were to see him pass from babyhood to boyhood and from boyhood to manhood.

From that December day in 1811 when Poe, as a 2-year-old adopted son of John and Frances Allan, first entered the imposing brick structure of Georgian type--known as the "Allan Mansion," which stood at the corner of Tobacco Alley and Fourteenth Street, to that less fortunate day in March, 1827, when the first great break occurred in his relations with his exacting foster-father and he left for Boston, Poe had spent ten out of the eighteen years of his life in Richmond. The exception were the two years of his infancy prior to his mother's death; the five happy years he was in England with the Allan's (1815 to 1820) , and his tempestuous term--February, 1826 to February, 1827--at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, which ended for him in heartache and humiliation.

*          *          *

During these eventful, and oftimes happy, colorful years of his youth, Edgar Poe lived the life of a typical young Virginian "well-to-do," numbering among his fondest and closest playmates, such prominent youths of the town as Robert Standard, Robert Sully, (a nephew of the American artist) and Robert Cabell--all "Bob's" to Edgar. Indeed, Poe's "family" moved in the best of Richmond society. Among John Allan's neighbors were Thomas Taylor, Major James Gibbon, Joseph Tate and Joseph Marx. These gentlemen were of the highest social position in Richmond, and were the confreres of Chief Justice Marshall, Colonel Ambler, Judge Cabell, Doctor Brockenbrough, Judge Standard and others--famous for their hospitality and stately homes.

"In such houses" writes Hervey Allen in "Israfel"---"young Poe was welcome, and the associations of such an environment stamped upon him the attitude and the mode of conversation of a gentleman. It was the Virginia of the Old School, a School of Manners."

Richmond, in the 1820's had a population of about 12,000 persons, and was a pleasant enough place for a boy to live. "The merriest place in America" Thackeray called it on his visit a year later. Mary Newton Standard gives a graphic pen-picture of its culture and charm in 'The Dreamer': "Richmond was a fair and pleasant city in those days--the blight of the War Between the States had not changed the cheerful temper of its people. It was more of a large village than a town, with gracious homes standing comfortably apart, with wide verandahs overlooking sloping lawns and brilliant flower borders; with a picturesque panorama outstretched before the admiring eye, of Richmond's seven hills."

*          *          *

Such then, was the Richmond of Edgar Allan Poe's youth. There were streams and swamps, meadows and forests, vast fields of tobacco, and on Saturdays and holidays the boys had fish-fries by the river, and tramps through the woods for wild grapes and chinquapins. On one occasion there is recorded Poe's enthusiastic call to young Robert Sully, "Come along Rob, we are going to the Hermitage woods for chinquapins, and you must come too. Uncle Billy is going for a load of pine-tags, and we can ride in his wagon so it won't tire you."

On the James River there occurred the great feat of Poe's boyhood, when he swam from Ludlows Wharf to Warwick--a distance of seven miles, in a hot June sun against a strong tide. An interested group of spectators witnessed this Byronic gesture, including Poe's schoolmaster, "Master Burke" and several of his admiring playmates.

There were those hours and days of his childhood, full of observation and keen enjoyment, spent in the store of Ellis and Allan, of which John Allan was president. There Poe saw the Virginia planters drive up and tether their horses; students enroute to William and Mary College at Williamsburg, come in to present their letters of credit; ladies congregate in friendly groups to select the latest in taffetas and brocades.

Although the firm of Ellis and Allan carried the suffix"Tobacco Merchants," the partners dealt in a variety of merchandise that included such commodities as hay, wheat, maise, grains, cornmeal, coffee and fine tea, cloth and clothing of all varieties, seeds, wines, liquors, agricultural implements, hardware--in fact it ran the gamut of the "General Store" of a hundred or more years ago.

John Allan's warehouses and docks somehow came to be the popular rendezvous for the foreign and coastwise shipping of square-rigged days. One can visualize the scene--dark stevedores returning the shouts and songs of passing barges and canal boats--martingales flying by. Magic days and dreams for young Israfel, with the romance of the sea floating up the murky James; hours in the intoxicating splendor of the Virginia sunshine, with the breeze wafting seaward the pungent arome of tobacco.

*          *          *

Not all, however, of Edgar Poe's youth was romance and adventure. There were serious, practical moments, ripe with reflection and contemplation--and sadder days. Some of his earliest and fondest associations centered around Memorial Episcopal Church on Broad Street, which had been erected on the site of the old Richmond Theatre (in which Poe's mother had often played) as a memorial to those who perished in the fire there in 1811. The Allan's had Pew 80, which faced directly in front of the pulpit. Here the sonorous voice and rotund figure of Bishop Moore, was heard and seen every Sunday by young Edgar.

On returning from England in August, 1820, Poe was entered in the English and Classical School of one Joseph H. Clark of Trinity College, Dublin, who had under his instruction in Richmond, the sons of most of the fashionable and wealthy families in town.

From Poe's acquaintance with young Bobby Standard sprang the first great emotional experience of his life. His meeting with Bobby's beautiful mother, and seeing her "glorified" as she stood in the window of the old Stanard home, that until recently, stood at the corner of Ninth and Franklin Streets, facing Capitol Square--has been immortalized in one of Poe's greatest poems--"To Helen." In 'The Dreamer,' Mary Newton Stanard gives a poignant and beautiful picture of the scene--"She crossed the square of light the window made. In her uplifted hand she carried the lamp from which the light shone, and for a moment her slight figure, clad all in white as he had seen her in the garden a few hours before--softly illuminated, was framed in the ivy-wreathed casement."

(Continued)