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[page 4, column 3, continued:]
POE'S INTEMPERANCE.
What a Gentleman of Milford Recalls of the Poet.
W. P. Corsa, correspondent of the Milford Chronicle, quotes an article from EVERY EVENING [[THE STATE]] to the effect that Dr. W. Gibbon Carter of Richmond, denied that Edgar Allen Poe was ever a drunkard, and says:
Far be it from me to becloud a character that at its worst excited the interest and sympathy of mans, and made a host of’ friends. But the memory of childhood ton vivid to pass unchallenged the above assertion of Dr. Carter.
While Poe lived in Fordham, N. Y., it was my lot in going to and from school to pass his residence daily.
The house was a low one story and a-half cottage, with its gable end toward the road, and located but a few feet from the picket fence that shut it in from the highway. Along its front ran a roofed porch. the floor of which was scarcely raised above the ground by the small floor-timbers. The cottage laced a small orchard of large apple trees and was romantic spot. Along this porch, from and to ent, back and forth, I have the most vivid recollection of Poe as he paced with measured step, somewhat quick and nervous, his hands behind him and his head bowed. His face was generally flushed and his countenance was the picture of distress; so that the school girls passed with quicked pace, and the boys, assuming a boldness they scarcely possessed, sauntered on the sidewalk near the fence, until we had passed what was generally known as “the drunken man.” On pleasant afternoons he was seldom absent from this porch, and if he was not a drunkard he did himself great injustice by carrying the sign.
During his residence in Fordham his necessities were ministered to by aunt, Mrs. Walton, and by other relatives and friends, who took great interest him and his; and among whom I never heard our idea that he was “the drunken man” disabused, except so far as to assure us that he would not hurt any one.
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Notes:
Every Evening had reprinted Dr. W. Gibbon Carter's comment from The State (Richmond, VA). William Pickney Corsa (1842-1904) was born in Fordham, but how reliable might be the memories of a 7 year old child are debatable, and Poe was absent from home for almost half of 1849, meaning that Corsa was not quite 6, thus barely school age. Consequently, he may be repeating things he heard from others in later years. During the Civil War, he served in the Union Army as a sergeant in the 12th New York Volunteers. He moved to Milford, DE about 1866, where he was an editor of a succession of newspapers. He retired from the journalism trade in favor of outdoor employment, as a matter of his health. In 1890, he was appointed to the Agricultural Department, where he was a pomologist. (A pomologist is someone with a specialty in fruit and nut trees.) Although there is tombstone for him in Saint Stephens UCC Cemetery, in Perkasie, PA, he is actually buried in Arlington. (His stone in Saint Stephens gives his birth year as 1841.) The identity of his aunt, Mrs. Walton, has not been verified.
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[S:0 - EE, 1881] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - Poe's Intemperance (W. P. Corsa, 1881)