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The Poe Memorial — Inauguration of the Poet's Monument. — Professor Elliott, president of the Baltimore City College, has the superintendence of the work of completing the monument to Edgar A. Poe, which, it is expected, will be inaugurated in September. Prof. Shepherd will deliver the oration at the inauguration. The monument will be placed over the grave of Poe, in the Westminster churchyard, corner of Fayette and Greene streets. It was designed by George A. Frederick, and is being made at the marble works of Hugh Sisson. Its entire height will be seven feet ten inches, including the granite base, six feet square by one foot high. The sub-base is of Italian marble, three free ten inches square and one foot two inches high. Resting on the base is the die-block, of fine Carara marble, three feet two inches square, ornamented at the corners with rosetts. The die-block will contain a life-size medallion bust of Poe, from a model by Volck, copied from an oil painting, said to be a fine likeness, in the possession of John P Poe. Surmounting this is the cap, also of Carara marble, four feet wide by two feet eight inches high, ornamented on each side immediately above the medallion with a lyre and olive branch and at the corners with heavy leaves. The cap is of the Byzantine style, with Doric moldings.
Professor Henry A. Shepherd, who has been for years an admirer of the poet Tennyson's works, and has frequently lectured upon Tennyson's poetical career before the students at Baltimore City College, some months ago sent Mr. Tennyson a copy of his History of the English Language, and in a letter accompanying the gift gave Mr. Tennyson an account of the progress made toward erecting a monument to Edgar A. Poe, and promising to send him a copy of its design. Mr. Tennyson politely and promptly acknowledged the receipt of the book in a letter dated Farringford, Isle of Wight, 21st of January, 1875, and referring to the Poe memorial wrote as follows: “I have long been acquainted with Edgar A. Poe's works and an admirer of them. I am obliged to you for your kind wishes respecting myself and your promise of sending me the design for the poet's monument.”
Professor Shepherd has also received a letter from Dr. C. M. Ingleby, editor of the new Shakspeare Society, and secretary of the Foreign Society of Literature, London, dated 20th of April, 1875, in which he expresses a warm interest in the Poe memorial. And in the “Allusion Books” of the Shakspeare Society. Dr. Ingleby pays a high tribute to the genius of Poe.
Algernon Swinburne, a rising poet and author of England, in a recently published poem, attributes to Edgar A. Poe the highest eminence among American poets.
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Notes:
Volck is often stated as having been Frederick Volck (1833-1891), but may actually have been his brother, Adalbert Johann Volck (1828 — 1912). A. J. Volck was born in Bavaria but graduated from the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery in 1852 and remained in Baltimore, in a fine house on Charles Street. As an artist, he is best known for his political cartoons, and although he was not particularly experienced as a sculptor, he may have been skilled enough to manage the creation of the medallion portrait. He is buried in Loudon Part Cemetery, in Baltimore. Professor Shepherd's precise role in planning the monument is uncertain. The person who was chiefly in charge was Miss Sara Sigourney Rice, a Baltimore schoolteacher. In that era, long before suffrage had been achieved, it may have been necessary to have a male in some role of authority, if only for purely pragmatic and political reasons.
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[S:0 - BS, 1875] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - The Poe Monument (Anonymous, 1875)