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Text: Anonymous, “A Swimming Poet,” Boston Evening Transcript (Boston, MA), vol. XX, whole no. 5887, September 29, 1849, p. 1, col. 6


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[page 1, column 6, continued:]

A SWIMMING POET. When Edgar A. Poe was 15 years old he swam from Ludlam's wharf on James River, at Richmond, to Warwick, a distance of seven miles and a half, in a hot June day, and against a tide running probably from two to three miles an hour. He walked back to Richmond immediately, afterward. This is authenticated by Dr. Cabell and others who accompanied the swimmer in boats.

 


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Notes:

What is most interesting about this item is that it repeats just a week before his death the story of Poe's 1824 swimming feat. Prior to this article, the story had last been printed in the biographical sketch of Poe attributed to H. B. Hirst, in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum in 1843.

 

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[S:0 - BET, 1849] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - A Swimming Poet (Anonymous, 1849)