Text: Anonymous, “What a San Franciscan Knows of the Poet,” San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco, CA), vol. XXVIII, no. 47, August 31, 1878, p. 3, col. 8

[page 3, column 8:]

“You say that Edgar Allen [[Allan]] Poe did not die from the effect: of deliberate dissipation?” asked a CHRONICLE reporter.

“That is just what I mean; and I say further, that he died from the effects of deliberate murder.”

This was a strange assertion: strange in being a flat contradiction of a fact or otherwise a theory, recorded in detail in the history of American literature. The author of the assertion was a well-known member of this city's advanced and inveterate Bohemia; gentleman who has long since retired from the active pursuits of his profession and spends his days in dreamy meditation — frequenting one of the popular resorts of the craft, but mingling little in the idle babble of the throng. When drawn into conversation, it is generally to correct some error from his inexhaustible mine of reminiscence. and on such occasions his words are few and precise.

NOT A PERIODICAL DRUNKARD.

“Then you know something of the poet and his history, Doctor?”

“With few others, I was of his intimate associates for years. Much that has been written of him and regarding his death is false. Poe was not what is called a periodical drunkard, holding himself to spells of total sobriety and then giving way to violent bouts of intemperance; but he was a steady drinker, and when his means permitted he would drink to excess. His habitual resort in Baltimore was the widowers Meagher's place. This was an oyster stand and liquor bar on the city front, corresponding in some respects with the coffee shops in San Francisco. It was frequented much by the printers men engaged in the shipping offices, and ranked as a respectable place, where parties could read the papers, enjoy a game of cards, or engage in social conversation. Poe was a great favorite with the old woman. You would always see him sitting just behind the oyster stand, and about as quiet and sociable as an oyster himself. He went by the name of the Bard, and when parties came into the shop it was ‘Bard, come up and take a nip,’ or ‘Bard, take a hand in this game.’ He was a sort of pensioner on his acquaintances, as far as drinks were concerned. Whenever the old woman met with any incident or idea that tickled her fancy she would ask Bard to versify it. Poe always complied, writing many a witty couplet and at times poems of considerable length. Much of his poetical work, quite as meritorious as some by which his name was immortalized, was thus frittered into obscurity. It was in this little shop that Poe's attontion was called to an advertisement in a Philadelphia paper of a prize for a meritorious story, and it was here that he composed his famous ‘Gold Bug,’ which took the prize. I heard him read it before he sent it on to Philadelphia, and when it was announced that his story was successtul the widow Meagher gave him the money to go on and obtain the prize.”

“But now about his death?”

HIS DEATH.

“Poe had been shifting between Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York for several years. He had been away from Baltimore about three months and turned up one evening at the widow's. I was there when be came in. Bard had been making a little raise North, and it was drinks all around, with repeat, until the crowd were down jolly. It was the night before an election, and the party started up town. There were tour of us, and we had not gone balt a dozen squares before we were nabbed by policemen, who were looking up voters to it was the practice in those days to seize people, whether drunk or sober, lock them up until the polls were opened, and then match them to every precinct in control of the party having the ‘coop.’ The coop was in the rear of an engine-house on Calvert street. It was part of the game to stupefy the prisoners with drugged liquor. The next day we were voted at thirty different places and over and over, it being as much as a man's life was worth to rebel. Poe was so badly drugged that he was carried on two or three rounds, and then the gang said that it was no use trying to vote a dead man any longer, so they shoved him into a cab and sent him to the hospital to get him out of the way.”

“Well, he died from dissipation.”

“Nothing of the kind. He died from laudanum or some other poison that forced on him in the coop. He was in a dying condition while he was being voted twenty or thirty times in Baltimore. The story told by Griswold of his having been on week's spree and being picked up on the street is all a lie. I saw him shoved into the cab myself.”

“Well, what about the general character given to Poe by Griswold and others?”

“I have nothing to say, only that Poe was a great poet, and he owed me nothing when he died.”