THAT’S SO RAVEN

A weekend journey reveals many Edgar Allan Poe connections to Tidewater

By JAMES F. LEE

The Virginian-Pilot | Sunday, October 9, 2022

Our plan was simple: Spend a weekend commemorating the death of Edgar Allan Poe — on Oct. 7, 1849 — by checking out sites related to him within a short drive of Norfolk.

One of America’s greatest poets and short story writers, Poe produced such unforgettable works as “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” He is credited as the inventor of detective fiction and was a pioneer in science fiction.

Lots of places claim him. He was born in Boston, died in Baltimore at age 40, had a cottage in the Bronx, and lived in Richmond for most of his life. But Norfolk and Hampton have a claim, too. Poe lived in Norfolk briefly as a child, and his younger sister was born there in 1810 in a boarding house on Brewer Street, near present-day MacArthur Center mall (neither the house nor the street still exists). The children were orphaned in 1811. Edgar was raised in Richmond by foster parents John and Frances Allan.

As a young man, he served in the Army at Fort Monroe. And just weeks before his death in 1849, he gave a very successful reading and lecture at the Old Academy Building on St. Paul’s Boulevard in Norfolk.

And that’s where my wife, Carol, and I started our trip.

Driving by on St. Paul’s, it is hard not to be impressed by the six massive columns and front portico of this building, modeled on the Greek Temple of Theseus. Famed architect Thomas U. Walter designed the structure, which was built in 1840. We walked its perimeter just imagining the excitement of crowds entering the building and waiting to hear the great poet.

Today, it is the home of the Hurrah Players, appropriate because Poe’s birth parents were itinerant actors. That night, he lectured on his essay, “The Poetic Principle,” but that is not what the crowd was there for. Audiences in those days loved to hear

him deride popular poets such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but more than anything they wanted to hear him recite “The Raven.” It was wildly popular. Children would come up to him on the street and imitate a bird’s walk while croaking “Nevermore.”

Poe had another connection to the area. His beloved foster mother, Frances Keeling Valentine Allan, was a native of Princess Anne County, today’s Virginia Beach. When he was a boy she took him to visit the Great Dismal Swamp, the dark, foreboding nature of which appealed to him. One of his earliest poems, “The Lake: To-,” was inspired by his visits there.

In that poem, he writes: So lovely was the loneliness Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, And the tall trees that tower’d round.

Later in life, he wrote that every American home should contain a print of John Gatsby Chapman’s 1842 painting “The Lake of the Great Dismal Swamp.”

My wife and I drove across the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel to Hamp-ton, where the Casemate Museum commemorates the history of Fort Monroe. Poe was stationed at Fort Monroe with the 1st Regimental Artillery from December 1828 to April 1829. Despite his later reputation as a drinker and carouser, he was a good soldier, rising to the rank of sergeant major.

Casemates — vaulted, gloomy chambers built within the thick walls of the fort — housed soldiers and artillery emplacements. Where Poe was quartered is unknown, but an information panel illustrates his military career and shows two letters he wrote at the fort.

He had already published some poems before he entered the Army, and while he was at Fort Monroe most likely worked on such poems as the auto-biographical “Alone.”

From the Casemate we drove on to Richmond. To make our Poe journey complete, we stayed at the boutique Linden Row Inn on East Franklin Street, where the Poe Experience package includes tickets for the Poe Museum and a gift volume of the “Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.” There was even a framed copy of “The Raven” on the wall of our room.

Poe’s photo in the lobby keeps watch over Anabelle the friendly hotel cat, no doubt named after the differently spelled Annabel Lee. A sign in the elevator says that if Anabelle should try to hitch a ride, people should help her get back to the lobby.

Linden Row gets its name from the linden trees and walled gardens that once lined the block. When Poe lived across the street, he sometimes met his childhood sweetheart there. The gardens inspired his poem “To One in Paradise.”

The ultimate Poe destination for any Poe enthusiast is Richmond’s Poe Museum, set in three historic houses on East Main Street. Curator Chris Semtner showed us the astonishing array of Poe artifacts, including his childhood bed, traveling trunk, waistcoat and correspondence, including the last letter he wrote. (The depth of the collection, Semtner said, “sets us apart from other museums.”) There is even a silver candelabra that illuminated Poe’s desk as he wrote his poem “The Bells.”

During our visit, the resident black cats, Pluto and Edgar, sunned themselves in the museum courtyard. Pluto, more outgoing, even tagged along with us during our tour.

Poe’s walking stick, engraved with his name, is on display. This is the same walking stick he left at his doctor’s office just weeks after his last Norfolk visit. Perhaps he used that cane at his Old Academy lecture.from tuberculosis in 1847, when she was just 24. Items from their household are on display, including her mirror, and her trinket box, cheaply made with fake leather, a testament to the grinding poverty in which she and her husband lived.

We also saw a receipt from the Southern Literary Messenger for $10 for “The Raven,” and a first edition of Poe’s book “Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems,” one of only 18 in the world.

A portrait just above Poe’s childhood bed shows the museum’s closest tie to the Tidewater area. It is a lovely painting of Princess Anne-born Frances Allan, Poe’s foster mother, completed by artist Robert Sully about a year before her death. When she died in February 1829 at the age of 45, Poe was serving at Fort Monroe.

We ended our tour at the museum’s Poe Shrine, a bust of Poe sheltered in a triple archway made from bricks from the old Southern Literary Messen-ger building in Richmond where he once worked. Visitors leave offerings on the bust and pedestal.

There were coins, a small seashell, a bottle cap, even a mint.

The seashell was most fitting — maybe it was for his foster mother from Princess Anne.

Reach James F. Lee at jameslee@bucknell.edu

IF YOU GO

Casemate Museum: 20 Bernard Road, Fort Monroe.

Pick up a timed entry ticket at the Visitor and Education Center, 30 Ingalls Road. Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays (3:30 p.m. is the last timed entry)

Tickets: Free

Details: fortmonroe.org/place_to_visit/casemate-museum, 757-690-8181

The Poe Museum: 1914 E. Main St., Richmond

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays Tickets: $10; $7 for older adults, youths, veterans and AAA members; free for people 6 and younger and for active-duty military and dependents.

Details: poemuseum.org, 804-648-5523

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