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| my friend Brad at Poe's grave |
Since I love history and reading, this blog combines both!
Edgar Allan Poe died a mysterious death on October 7, 1849. Recently I visited his gravesite with a friend (in the photo at his gravestone) and wanted to know more about it.
So, Christopher P. Semtner, curator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, VA, provided 13 facts about the circumstances surrounding his untimely demise, and the following 2 are about his gravesite. For the other 11, there's a link at the end of this blog.
Poe’s body was moved decades after his death.
Poe was buried in an unmarked grave in his grandfather’s plot in Westminster Burying Grounds in Baltimore. Eleven years later, a cousin paid for a monument, but the stone was destroyed by a train that crashed into the stone carver’s shop. It was 26 years after Poe’s death that teachers and students raised the money for a proper monument which was placed in a place of honor next to the cemetery gate. While it was being moved to the new location, Poe’s coffin broke, revealing what was left of Poe’s remains. Pieces of the coffin are now collector’s items. Supposedly, one of Poe’s female admirers wore a cross fashioned from pieces of the wood.
Poe’s wife was buried next to him nearly 40 years after her death.
Poe’s wife died two years before he did, and she was buried in his landlord’s family crypt in the Bronx. After he was reburied under his new monument, some of his admirers decided to move her next to him in Baltimore. The problem was that developers had already built over her cemetery and moved the bodies. Fortunately, one of Poe’s eccentric biographers William Gill rescued her bones. Unfortunately, he took them home with him and kept them in a box under his bed for years before he sent them to Baltimore for reburial.
For all 13 odd facts, visit: https://www.biography.com/news/edgar-allan-poe-death-facts
