Text: J C. L., “Letter to the Editor,” The State (Richmond, VA), vol. VI, no. 33, April 27, 1881, p. 2, col. 3

[page 2, column 3, continued:]

To the Editor of The State:

There are one or two slight errors in THE STATE of yesterday concerning the late Mrs. Louisa G. Allan and Edgar Allan Poe which are, I think, worthy of correction.

Poe's foster-mother was not this Mrs. Allan, but a former wife of “Scotch” John Allan, who died about February 27th, 1829. There was no issue of this marriage, and Poe was the heir presumptive of Mr. Allan's fortune; his conduct at the University of Virginia, however, greatly displeasing Mr. Allan, a quarrel ensued, and the high-spirited Poe left his house and shortly thereafter went to Baltimore. Upon his return, on the occasion of Mrs. Allan's death, a reconciliation, doubtless not very heartfelt on either side, took place between the foster-father and the adopted son. In 1831, when Poe had returned from West Point, an open and violent rupture occurred, growing out of Poe's attachment to Miss Royster — his first love, and the “Lost Lenore” of his after years — and they again separated. Then soon followed the blow that crushed the young poet's hopes of further pecuniary aid, and closed the door of possible reconciliation — Mr. Allan's marriage with the “beautiful Miss Patterson.”

You are mistaken in saying that both of Poe's parents were victims of burning of the burning of the old Richmond Theatre. They were then on the stage; and his mother died of pneumonia in this city on the 8th of December, 1811, while playing at the old Theatre, as you will find by reference to the files of the Enquirer. As to the fate of his father, Poe's biographers are not agreed, some stating that he perished in the Theatre, and others that he died of consumption in this city two weeks after the death of his wife. Poe died, as you know, in Baltimore in 1849. It will aid us somewhat in our contemplation of

“The stony face of Time”

to reflect that now, after the lapse of nearly thirty-two years,, the death of one who was ten years his senior, and who even at the time of his death had seen her fiftieth year, should recall the poet's sad and eventful history to a generation then unborn.

J. C. L.