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Visiting Poe’s Home Upon a Midday Dreary
This is the first in a four-column series chronicling my recent father-son road trip to the homes of two Founding Fathers and more.
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Monticello, the Virginia estate of Thomas Jefferson, is nearly 350 miles as the crow flies from my son’s shoebox-sized apartment in lower Manhattan.
Make that as “The Raven” flies, because to break up our drive we stopped midway at the Edgar Allen Poe House Museum in Baltimore.
Edgar Allen Poe
“Once upon a midnight dreary” begins the poem that launched Poe’s fame, and this certainly describes the midday of our visit two Saturdays past. Stepping out of the drizzle and inside the claustrophobic three-story brick home, a docent asked us how we learned about the museum. She seemed almost surprised to have visitors.
As if trying to ensure that we bought tickets, the docent told us we had arrived on an auspicious day because this date – October 8 – was the 167th anniversary of Poe’s funeral. She further explained, her voice dripping with drama, it had been a similarly rainy day.
My initial reaction was that the docent made this eerie claim every day for effect. However, a placard in the museum documented her claim: Poe died at age 40 on October 7, 1849, and his burial took place a day later at the nearby Westminster Burying Ground. Furthermore, so few people showed up because of the rain that the reverend decided not to bother with a sermon.
Poe lived at 203 North Amity Street only briefly, from 1833 to 1835 while in his mid-20s, yet he wrote voluminously during this span. The home was saved from demolition in 1941 and is now a National Historic Landmark that is nearly as hidden in plain sight as “The Purloined Letter.” I am glad we found it.
The narrow winding stairway leading up to Poe’s bedroom had a foreboding “rapping, rapping at my chamber door” feel. Artifacts on display include Poe’s chair and lap desk.
Poe’s legacy as a writer is remarkable; he invented the detective story and advanced the genres of horror and science fiction. And, of course, he penned a poem so great that an NFL team is named in its honor.
Serendipity smiled further on our side trip when the docent informed us that a anniversary ceremony commemorating Poe’s funeral was to be held at the Westminster Burying Ground, little more than a mile a way, starting in about five minutes.
Normally we would have walked, even in the rain, but for time’s sake we decided to drive. Confusing one-way streets and a dearth of parking spaces turned this into a bad decision. We finally made it to the church 10 minutes after the appointed 3 p.m. start.
Poe’s grave was easy to find by the size of its 7-foot tall marble monument, not by the size of the crowd gathered, because there was no one else present.
We hurried inside the beautiful gothic church, thinking the special observance for the great writer must be going on there instead of in the rain, but again we were alone.
Back into the drizzle we ventured to pay respects at the gravesite – the first of a handful of graves my son and I would visit, and be moved by, on our four-day journey.
Leaving the grounds, we finally encountered another person, an employee at the church. I inquired about the Poe ceremony, saying it must have been quite brief and we were sorry to have missed it.
It turns out that because of the dreary weather no one showed up and the planned sermon was cancelled. How eerily fitting.
In truth, the quaint museum had been a tad disappointing. But the mysticism of Poe having lived – and written – inside its walls, and the auspicious date of our visit, had magnified the magic.
Leaving the museum, the church, and a lunch of Maryland crab cakes at Lexington Market that dates back to 1763, we were accosted each time by panhandlers, one unnervingly aggressive. All in all, one visit to Poe’s city had been enough.
“Quoth the Raven, ‘Balti-nevermore.’ ”
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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.
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