Text: Jennie B. Dugdale, “The Grave of Edgar Allan Poe,” Poet-Lore: A Quarterly Magazine of Letters (Boston, MA), Vol. XI, no. 4, October 1899, pp. 583-588

[page 583:]

THE GRAVE OF EDGAR ALLAN POE.

AMONG the anniversaries which the year 1899 will bring there are few more significant and stirring than the semi-centennial of Edgar Allan Poe. The seventh day of October will mark the completion of the fiftieth year since the passing of that unique figure in American literary life, and whatever observance the occasion may call forth in the various places which claim a share in him, the chief interest must of necessity centre at the grave in Baltimore which has always been the Mecca of his admirers.

Although unthinking thousands who tread the thoroughfare close by pay no heed to the silent spot, pilgrims from over seas have sought it in increasing numbers, and have looked upon it as one of the most important monuments the New World has to show. The famous statement of Tennyson that he had no desire to visit the United States except for the one purpose of seeing the grave of Poe is often quoted by Baltimoreans with no little pride. Indeed it was the strong and unswerving enthusiasm of intelligent people abroad that finally compelled Americans to recognize their poet's genius. Of course Poe was widely read during his life, and there have always been some who felt his power and delighted in his art, but for years they were comparatively few and feeble, and while the strong tide of condemnation was sweeping over the land they could only bide their time as best they might, remembering —

For the lack of appreciation of Poe which was long general it is easy to account. His life was very far from the ideal most of us would outline for a poet. The looked-for serenity and sweetness and strength were woefully wanting and while disaster from without seemed tragically pitiless and overpowering we cannot deny that his own deeds were in some instances wholly responsible his undoing; yet it is difficult to explain why mistakes and [page 584:] misfortunes, which if not excused are at least overlooked in other men of marked genius, should in his case seem insurmountable, and he should be censured on all sides for what would elsewhere be forgotten. Nor is credit given him for his really heroic struggles, the successes he gained against fearful odds, and the many unheralded virtues which were at all times his. To him of all men is denied not charity only, but that sympathetic attitude which is necessary for the apprehension of truth.

The distinguishing quality of Poe's work, its originality, was in one way a peculiar disadvantage. The critics found it so illy fitting into the moulds of their preconceived canons that they condemned it forthwith. In sooth, we all retain no little of the barbarian instinct of disliking the unaccustomed and unknown, and when such utterly startling and novel wares as his were offered to us we turned away well content with our chosen limitations.

Then, too, a more positive cause for Poe's unpopularity might be found in his facility in “the gentle art of making enemies.” His unsparing criticisms of the literary people of his day brought him a harvest of hatred from many writers of influence in their time who are now known chiefly through his mention of them. In accordance with the special fatality which seemed to follow his fortunes his bitterest and meanest personal enemy had an unexcelled opportunity to injure him as the editor of his works and his first biographer. The malicious and slanderous sketch published by Griswold soon after Poe's death became, unhappily, the authority from which one writer after another quoted, and it has thus shaped the general belief concerning Poe, in spite of the succession of protestors who have arisen to disprove its statements. At long last the tide may be said to be turning, and lovers of Poe, who are also lovers of justice, can foresee the time when he shall occupy his rightful place in American letters. Some optimists may perhaps predict the day when a noble and imposing monument shall give fit expression to a nation's pride in his genius, but meanwhile the thoughts of many turn to the structure which now marks his grave, its history, and the vicissitudes of his resting place in these fifty years. [page 585:]

There seemed to be a strange ruling of destiny in the choice of Baltimore as the place of Poe's death and burial. Although it was the home of his ancestors, he had spent only a few years there, at the beginning of his literary career, and he had no special fondness for it; intercourse with his Baltimore relatives had ceased, and when he reached the city for the last time, it was merely with the intention of passing through from the northern home he was quitting to the new one he proposed setting up in Richmond.

The cloud of obscurity and misstatement which hung over the whole of Poe's life closed down on his last days with discouraging denseness. Every telling of his story is to some extent a contradiction of what has been previously written and on hardly a single date or fact of this tragic tale do all his biographers agree. Almost every occurrence from the date of his birth to the details of his burial is disputed and many must always remain in doubt. The account of his last illness given by the physician who attended him is probably the most accurate that can be obtained ; the story of the interrupted journey ; the arrival by boat from Richmond in the early morning of October 5th ; the short stay at Bradshaw's Hotel; the departure by train at noon for Philadelphia; the halt at Havre de Grace; Poe's refusal to cross the stormy Susquehanna; his return to Baltimore the same evening ; the seizure by the two roughs who robbed him and cast him out unconscious in the cold; the removal next morning to the hospital; and his death there, — all are clearly traced in Dr. Moran's circumstantial record. He names those who formed the funeral procession and describes the simple ceremony in Westminster Churchyard. A kinsman, Rev. W. T. D. Clemm, read the Methodist service as the shivering little group of relations, literary admirers and doctors from the hospital stood beside the grave in the chill autumnal rain. Then the place was left to its own silence. One man only of all that company is yet alive, the sexton, Spence, who dug the grave and who now after fifty years still guards it day and night, living in the crypt of the church and showing the poet's resting place to all who wish to see it. [page 586:]

This old Presbyterian burial ground was used by many families famous in Colonial and Revolutionary times, here lay Edgar Allan Poe's grandfather, General David Poe, and others of the name; so it was that this homeless and friendless stranger, who had been a wanderer all his life long, slept at last beside the tomb of his ancestors.

For twenty-six years “Poe's neglected grave” in the family lot back of the church was unmarked by any memorial The subject was discussed from time to time but the only effort made to erect one was ended by a peculiar disaster. In 1860, Judge Neilson Poe had a stone prepared, and when it was finished and standing in the stonecutter's yard ready for removal to the cemetery an accident occurred on the railway beside the yard; a freight train ran off the track, broke the fence and injured several monuments, none seriously however, except the Poe tablet which was shattered to atoms.

Again years passed until a movement begun by the public school teachers in 1865 succeeded after ten years in securing the monument which has since borne Poe's name. When it was put up, his remains were brought from their first resting place, behind the church, to a more commanding location at the front of the graveyard, close to the corner of Fayette and Greene Streets. On the occasion of the unveiling, November 17, 1875, elaborate commemorative exercises were held in the neighboring High . School building, followed by briefer ones at the grave, in presence ‘ of crowds in the street who could not gain entrance to schoolhouse or churchyard.

The stone is of white-veined Italian marble, on a granite base; it is square and massive, eight feet in height, with little ornamentation, except on the frieze which shows on each side a laurel-crowned lyre. On the east face of the monument is a life size bas-relief bust of Poe modelled from one of his most satisfactory photographs, below this is the name Edgar Allan Poe, and on the opposite panel are inscribed the dates of his birth and death. Even here one of the contradictions of his story pursues his [page 587:] memory for the birth-day is given as January 20th, instead of January 19th., now generally accepted as the correct date. This tomb covers also the remains of Mrs. Clemm, the poet's aunt and mother-in-law, the beloved “Muddie” of his affectionate letters, who survived him for twenty-one years; and with special satisfaction we learn that the girl-wife, poor little Virginia, was brought from Fordham where she died and now rests beside him in whom her life centred. Surely the steadfast, unselfish love of these three — to which suffering and misfortune served but to give greater strength — is the most beautiful thing in the whole sad story. An unromantic person might pronounce this triple alliance the most unwise arrangement possible for each of them, and certainly the possession of a modicum of worldly wisdom by any one of them would have been to the advantage of all, but their need of it ceased with the ceasing of their sorrows, and sweet and fitting it is that these true lovers should in their death be not divided.

It is the testimony of the aged custodian that the visitors to Poe's grave grow more numerous every year. Among these is a little band whose coming is as regular as the recurring season, a committee from the Woman's Club of Baltimore, who on All Souls’ Day place flowers on the tombs of all the writers buried in Baltimore.

There have been repeated proposals to remove the grave of Poe to one of the larger cemeteries, to Druid Hill Park, or some other place of greater prominence than its present situation in an old and unfashionable part of the city, where few people — either Baltimoreans or strangers — are likely to see it, unless making special search for it; but there is as little probability of such a change in the near future as of the erection of the costly memorial which admirers of Poe's genius hope may some day attest his fame more fittingly than the existing pile, which makes slight pretention [[pretension]] to beauty or impressiveness.

Meanwhile it is consoling to recall such words as those of Holmes predicting that Poe's reputation would be one of the few [page 588:] which would outlive any graven record raised to preserve it; or Aldrich's expression of the same thought — “Perhaps no American author stands so little in need of a monument to perpetuate his name as the author of ‘The Raven.’ His imperishable fame is in all lands.”

Jennie Bard Dugdale.