Produced by Barbara Tozier, Turgut Dincer, Bill Tozier and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: EDGAR ALLAN POE
[REPRODUCED FROM A PHOTO GIVEN TO MRS. WEISS BY POE THREE DAYS BEFORE
HE LEFT RICHMOND]]
THE HOME LIFE OF POE
BY SUSAN ARCHER WEISS
BROADWAY PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK 1907
_Title Page by Wm. Lincoln Hudson . Cover by Stephen G. Clow_
Copyright, 1907,
BY
SUSAN ARCHER WEISS.
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. PAGE.
First Glimpse of Edgar Poe 1
CHAPTER II.
Poe's First Home 9
CHAPTER III.
The Allan Home 13
CHAPTER IV.
Poe's Boyhood 20
CHAPTER V.
Schoolboy Love Affairs 36
CHAPTER VI.
Rosalie Poe 41
CHAPTER VII.
The Unrest of Youth 44
CHAPTER VIII.
In Barracks 52
CHAPTER IX.
Poe and Mrs. Allan 57
CHAPTER X.
The Closing of the Gate 61
CHAPTER XI.
Mrs. Clemm 64
CHAPTER XII.
A Pretty Girl with Auburn Hair Whom Poe Loved 70
CHAPTER XIII.
Poe's Double Marriage 74
CHAPTER XIV.
The Poes in Richmond 82
CHAPTER XV.
In New York 88
CHAPTER XVI.
The Real Virginia 90
CHAPTER XVII.
Poe's Philadelphia Home 94
CHAPTER XVIII.
Virginia's Illness 102
CHAPTER XIX.
Back to New York 108
CHAPTER XX.
Poe and Mrs. Osgood 119
CHAPTER XXI.
At Fordham 127
CHAPTER XXII.
The Shadow at the Door 137
CHAPTER XXIII.
Mrs. Shew 145
CHAPTER XXIV.
Quiet Life at Fordham 148
CHAPTER XXV.
With Old Friends 154
CHAPTER XXVI.
Mrs. Whitman 169
CHAPTER XXVII.
Again in Richmond 179
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A Morning with Poe--"The Raven" 184
CHAPTER XXIX.
Mrs. Shelton 194
CHAPTER XXX.
The Mystery of Fate 203
CHAPTER XXXI.
After the War 212
CHAPTER XXXII.
Poe's Character 219
Appendix 227
TO THE READER.
In considering this book, will the reader especially note that it is not
a "Life" or a "Biography" of Poe, of which too many already exist and to
which nothing can be added after the exhaustive works of Woodbury and
Prof. Harrison. I have not treated Poe in his character of poet or
author, but confined myself to his private home-life, domestic and
social, as I have heard it described by Poe's most intimate friends who
knew him from infancy--some of them my own relatives--and from my own
brief knowledge of him in the last three months of his life. The book
may therefore be considered as a _supplement_ to the more complete
"Lives and Biographies," showing Poe in a character as yet wholly
unknown to the public, but which should be known in order to enable us
to form a correct judgment of his character. I have corrected various
misstatements of writers which, repeated by one from another, have come
to be received as truth.
I have made no attempt at producing an artistic work, but have treated
the subject as it demands, in a plain and practical manner with regard
to facts apart from idealism of any kind.
THE AUTHOR.
HOME LIFE OF POE.
CHAPTER I.
FIRST GLIMPSE OF EDGAR POE.
It may be regarded as a somewhat curious coincidence that the first
glimpse afforded us of Edgar Poe is on the authority of my own mother.
This is the story, as she told it to me:
"In the summer of 1811 there was a fine company of players in Norfolk,
and we children were as a special treat taken to see them. I remember
the names of Mr. Placide, Mr. Green, Mr. Young and Mr. Poe, with their
wives. I can recall Mrs. Young as a large, fair woman with golden hair;
but my most distinct recollection is of Mrs. Poe. She was rather small,
with a round, rosy, laughing face, short dark curls and beautiful large
blue eyes. Her manner was gay and saucy, and the audience was
continually applauding her. She appeared to me a young girl, but was
past thirty, and had been twice married.
"At this time," continued my mother, "we were living on Main street, and
my uncle, Dr. Robert Butt, of the House of Burgesses, lived close by, on
Burmuda street. The large, bright garret-room of his house was used by
our little cousins as a play-room, and was separated from that of the
adjoining house by only a wooden partition. One day, when we were
playing here, we heard voices on the other side of the partition, and,
peeping through a small knothole, saw two pretty children, with whom we
soon made acquaintance. Mr. and Mrs. Poe had taken lodgings in this
garret with a little boy and girl and an old Welsh nurse. Sometimes this
woman would say to us, 'Hush, hush, dumplings, don't make a noise,' and
we knew that some one was sick in that room. Most of the time she had
the children out of doors, and in the evenings we would play with them
on the sidewalk. The boy was a merry, romping little fellow, but hard to
manage. One day, when he would persist in playing in the middle of the
street, a runaway horse came dashing around a corner, and I remember how
the nurse rushed toward him, screaming: 'Ho! Hedgar! Hedgar!' snatching
him away at the risk of her own life.
"This nurse was a very nice old woman, plump, rosy and good-natured. She
wore a huge white cap with flaring frills, and pronounced her words in a
way that amused us. She was devoted to the children, who were spoiled
and wilful. The little girl was running all about, and the boy appeared
about three years old."
Of this old lady it may be here said that she was really the mother of
Mrs. Poe, whom she called "Betty." As an actress of the name of Arnold,
she had played in various companies in both this country and Europe,
taking parts in which comic songs were sung. Her pretty daughter,
Elizabeth, she had brought up to her own profession, and had married her
early to an actor named Hopkins, who died in October, 1805. Two months
after his death his widow married David Poe, who was at that time a
member of their company; and mean while her mother, Mrs. Arnold, had
bestowed her own hand upon a musician of the romantic name of Tubbs, who
soon left her a widow. Thenceforth she devoted herself to her daughter's
family, remaining with the company and occasionally appearing in some
unimportant part.
When in the summer of that year of 1811 Mr. Placide's company left
Norfolk to open a season in Richmond, Mr. David Poe was too ill with
consumption to accompany them, and his family remained in Norfolk. He
must undoubtedly have died there; for from that time in all the affairs
of his family his name is not once mentioned, nor is the remotest
allusion made to him. He was probably buried by the city in one of the
obscure suburban cemeteries. By his death the widow was left penniless,
and Mr. Placide, to whose company she still belonged, and who was
anxious to have her services in his Richmond campaign, sent one of his
employees to bring the family to Richmond at his own expense. A room and
board had been engaged for them "at the house of a milliner named Fipps
on Main street," in the low-lying district between Fifteenth and
Seventeenth streets, still known as "_Bird-in-hand_." This room was not
by any means the wretched apartment which it has been described by some
of Poe's biographers. It was not a "cellar," not even a basement room,
but one back of the shop, the family residing above, and must have been
comfortably furnished, for this neighborhood was at this time the
shopping district of the ladies of Richmond, and Mrs. Fipps was probably
a fashionable shopkeeper. Damp Mrs. Poe's room must have been, since
this locality was the lowest point in the city, where, when the river
overflowed its banks, as was frequently the case, the water would rise
to the back doors of the Main street buildings and at times flood the
ground floors. In this room Mrs. Poe contracted the malarial fever then
known as "ague-and-fever," which proved fatal to her.
Owing to her illness Mrs. Poe, though her appearance was constantly
advertised, did not appear on the stage more than a half dozen times, if
as often. Mr. Placide wrote to her husband's relatives in Baltimore in
behalf of herself and children, but received no satisfactory answer, and
the company kindly gave her a benefit performance. Also, one of the
Richmond papers, the "_Enquirer_," of November 25th, made an appeal "to
the kind-hearted of the city" in behalf of the sick actress and her
little children. This brought to their aid among others Mr. John Allan
and his friend, Mr. Mackenzie.
Both these gentlemen were engaged in the tobacco business, and being of
Scotch nationality, the feeling of clanship led them to take a special
interest in this family, whom they discovered to be of good Scotch
stock. Everything possible was done for their comfort, and Mrs. Allan
herself came to minister to the sick woman. On her first visit she found
Mrs. Tubbs feeding the children with bread soaked in sweetened gin and
water, which she called "gin-tea," and explained that it was her custom,
in order to "make them strong and healthy." This was little Edgar's
initiation into the habit which became the bane and ruin of his life.
It soon became evident that Mrs. Poe was very near her end. Pneumonia
set in; and on the 8th of December, 1811, she died.
The question now was, what was to be done with the children? After a
consultation among all parties, it was agreed that Mr. Mackenzie and Mr.
Allan should take charge of them at their own homes until they should be
claimed by their Baltimore relatives.
It was a sad scene when the little ones were lifted up to look their
last upon the face of their dead mother, and then to be separated
forever from the grandmother who had so loved and cared for them. In
parting she gave to each a memento of their mother; to the boy a small
water-color portrait of the latter, inscribed, "For my dear little son,
Edgar, from his mother," and to the girl a jewel case, the contents of
which had long since been disposed of. It was all that she had had to
leave them, and with this slender inheritance in their hands the little
waifs were taken away to the homes of strangers.
On the day following a small funeral procession wended its way up the
steep ascent of Church Hill to the graveyard of St. John's church,[1]
crowning its summit. At that day it was no easy matter to get one whose
profession had been that of an actor buried in consecrated ground; yet
Mr. Mackenzie succeeded in effecting this. The grave was in a then
obscure part of the cemetery, "close against the eastern wall," and
here, after the brief service, the mother of Edgar Poe was laid to rest.
[1] In this historical church it was that Patrick Henry
thrilled the hearts of his hearers with the memorable words,
"Give me liberty or give me death!" and sent them forever
"ringing down the grooves of time."
Mrs. Tubbs remained with Mr. Placide's company, and doubtless returned
with them to England and to her own family.
Six weeks after the death of Mrs. Poe occurred that awful tragedy and
holocaust of the burning of the Richmond theatre, which shrouded the
whole country in gloom. On that night a large and fashionable audience
attended the performance of "_The Bleeding Nun_," eighty of whom
perished in the flames. Mrs. Allen had expressed a wish to attend, with
her sister and little Edgar, but her husband objected and instead took
them on a Christmas visit to the country; so they escaped the tragedy,
as did also the members of Placide's company.