Text: Anonymous, “Edgar Allan Poe's Home,” New York Times (New York, NY), vol. XXXII, whole no. 9909, June 10, 1883, p. 5, col. 3

[page 5, column 3, continued:]

The cottage in Fordham which was occupied from 1847 to 1849 by Edgar Allan Poe was sold at auction yesterday at Duffey's hotel, in the village, for $5,700, under a mortgage foreclosure. The cottage belonged to the estate of Henry M. Verien and was sold by order of Elliot Sandford, referee. The mortgage and accrued interest amount to more than the price paid for the property. The purchaser was Milton Strang, one of the heirs of the estate. The cottage situated upon the King's Bridge road which winds upward between moss-covered stone walls and great old trees through the village of Fordham. It is a quaint little one-story and a half white cottage, with a veranda on two aides, which is overgrown with vines and flowers, and is embowered in green old fruit trees on the crown of the Fordham bill. The cottage is occupied by an old southern lady, Mrs. R. D. Dechert, who is an enthusiast upon the subject of Poe, as, indeed, are all the old of Fordham. Mrs Dechert points out the little room where Mrs. Poe died, while her husband was in the deepest poverty, with his well-worn military cloak used as a coverlet for the bed, and shows the up-stairs department where Poe wrote the article which Mrs. Clemm, his faithful mother in law, took to the New York magazines, not daring to trust him amid the temptations of the metropolis. Here the poet wrote after the death of his wife, and among other poems, “The Bells,” “For Annie,” and “Annabel Lee.” Back of the cottage is the pine-shaded, rocky knoll where Poe is said to have been in the habit of reclining and dreaming day-dreams for hours together. From these rocks a pretty rural view is obtained of white cottages and church spires peeping out from among green trees within a crescent of blue-tinted mountain ranges. In the orchard back of the cottage Poe's initials, which the poet cut in the bark of an apple tree, may still be faintly distinguished on the rough trunk. During the time of his residence in Fordham, Poe's life was embittered by poverty and his own Inability to withstand the temptation which finally brought him to his death. He left Fordham in the spring of 1849, and was on his way back in the fall to take Mrs. Clemm to Baltimore, when be was tempted into his final and fatal dissipation. Mrs. Clemm sold his furniture after his death, and several pieces of it are treasured in the neighborhood Mrs. Reuben Cromwell, who lives near the cottage, has a clock, a chair, and a Bible as relics of her gifted but unfortunate neighbor. Mrs. Dechert has been very much annoyed lately by curiosity-seekers, who wish to be shown through the premises once occupied by the poet. The remains of Mrs. Poe were in the vault of the Valentine family in Fordham until two years ago, when they were taken up and reinterred in Baltimore, near those of her husband.