Text: P'ter O'Dactyl, “The Raven: Demolition of the House in Eighty-fourth Street,” Standard Union (Brooklyn, NY), vol. XXV, no. 163, August 15, 1888, p. 1, col. 4

[page 1, column 4, continued:]

It was supposed to be settled until a week ago that Poe wrote “The Raven” at the old cottage in Eighty-fourth street, near the Boulevard, New York City. Thither thousands of pilgrims have gone to look upon the scene of that remarkable inspiration, and biographies of the melancholy poet have contaiued [[contained]] in steel engravings the house and the very room. Until this month the old cottage was standing alone upon the upheaved granite, but the resistless tide of material progress has removed it. Many have been the relic savers who have visited the place. A shingle, pieces of mouldings, the door,” the mantlepiece, window casings, have been, eagerly obtained, showing the intense private hold of readers by the poem of which the American Encylopedia [[Encyclopedia]] has said: “It would have made any man's fame in any age or any language.” Warner in his “Men of Letters” remarks: “No great poem established itself so immediately, so widely and so imperishably in men's minds.” Mrs. Sigourney Rice in her interesting “Memorial Volume” writes: “This master piece of genius has probably done mo re for the renown of American letters than any work.” And N. P. Willis, when he copied it in the Review, prepared it with the head note: “Unsurpassed in English poetry.” “It will stick to the memory of everybody who reads it.”

No one who is impressed with the sentiments of “The Raven” could have stood in the little plain room and looked upon its walls and through the windows, down the slope and across the Hudson, without profound feelings, entering to some extent upon the spirit that inspired the, author, and almost sympathizing with him and his child wife as if they were actually present. We take positions where they stood, and sit at the windows and before the fireplace, and then recite appropriate lines of “The Raven.”

A newspaper of last Sunday implies that “The Raven” was written at the little cottage on the hill and roadside at Fordham. Poe did not go there until 1846; but the poem appeared in the Mirror and the Review in February of 1845; and Charles Dudley Warner, biographer, says the poem was in course of composition in 1842 and 1843. To satisfy any who may take an interest in the matter the writer of this visited Mrs. Gen. O’Beirne at the Gladstone Hotel in Central Park yesterday. Mrs. O’Beirne was Miss Mattie Brennan and is a sister of Commissioner Thomas Brennan. She is the oldest child of the Brennan family who owned the estate, was born in the Poe cottage in 1838 and married there in 1862, and was well acquainted as a child 5 and 6 years of age with Poe, with Virginia and with Mrs. Clem [[Clemm]]. Your interviewer was kindly received by Mrs. O’ Beirne, who is a tall, graceful, intelligent and most interesting lady, fully impressed with the subject, and her exact words are given below. To my direct question, “How do you know Poe wrote ‘The Raven’ there?” Mrs. O’Beirne replied, and with considerable interest and feeling all through the interview: “For the simple reason that he read his manuscript to us there, and I as a little child used to be in the room often visiting his wife Virginia.”

Q. But do you distinctly recollect the sentiments of the poem as expressed at the time?

A. Yes, I used to be amused at his turning his sheets with writing side down, and I would stand by him at his table and turn them down for him. He boarded with us two summers, in 1843 and 1844, while he wrote for the magazines. He would go off in the woods and write and come home and read to us what he had written. Among the pieces was “The Raven,” My mother remembered it all well, and many gentlemen came to see her about it. I was married there twenty-five years ago, and our family lived there up to 1870, I have visited the old homestead often, almost every season, and it has always remained the same. There has been no change in that room excopt painting and papering. My brother drove with me past there last Sunday and I wanted to secure the old carved wood mantlepiece around the fire place of Poe's room, but saw the house was torn down. I regretted this very much, but the improvements came so quickly that I have been surprised. And too, I suppose all the heirlooms that were stored in the garret have gone. There was the old clock and my mother's spinning wheel. The mantelpiece in Poe's room was very quaint and oldfashioned, with carved fruit and vines and leaves, and mother always kept it carefully painted.”

I informed the lady that the mantel had been bought by Mr. William Hemstreet, of Brooklyn, and erected around the fireplace in his library, and was highly prized by him as a disciple of Poe. And bere is the most interesting fact in the chaia of identity of “‘The Raven” O’ Beirne remember very well the old plaster bust above the door, and I wonder where it has gone I told her that visitors had often remarked, with some merriment at the meagreness of the room, that there was no space over that plain, flat door-casing for the “Pallid bust of Pallas.” She replied that there was little shelf over the door upon which she distinctly remembered the bust. She said there WAS a tavern or hotel opposite, kept by a man named Palamo, who took summer boarders, and aS Virginia could not dress as the other ladies, and, as Poe said be preferred the quiet and plainness of a private family, he importuned Mrs. Brennan to take them, which she did for two summers, 1843 and 1844. The place was then country-like and very picturesque. Mrs. O’Beirne continued: Poe used to take Virginia upstairs in his arms. He was very devoted to his little wife; used to bring her fruits and candies from the city of which I always had a part at his knee, for the family petted me. Before he left the tavern Poe would often come over to us and read his manuscript and enjoy, under our trees, the view of the river. Several people came to interview mother about ‘The and in that way I have always associated the poem with that room and continued it in my memory. I remember Poe's looks very well, and, unaided, pointed out his bust in the Central Park Museum. My husband was in charge of the defenses at Washington at the time of the assassination of President Lincoln, and when he obtained from the pocket of one of the assassins the photograph of Wilkes Booth, I immediately told my busband that there was just such a looking man as Edgar A. Poe. Poe was not a drinking man, but a very littie liquor affected him; and Dr. Moran, who attended him at the hospital during his last illness, said the same, Poe was always a perfect gentleman, and our family thought all the world of him.”

At times Mrs. O’Beirne showed considerable emotion in reminiscences, connected as they were with her early home, her child-like intimacy with this poet, and the recent utter demolition and destruction of all the scenes connected therewith, even the very topography.

P'TER O'DACTYL.