BIOGRAPHY

This biography traces the last few days of Poe’s life, in 1849. He had just parted from Elmira Shelton, to whom he was recently engaged. Shelton lived in Richmond, Virginia, and Poe set out from there for Baltimore, Maryland, eventually planning to go to New York City. He never reached it.

Poe’s Final Days

from Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance
Kenneth Silverman

In the early morning of September 27, a Thursday, Poe began the first leg of his return to the North, setting out from Richmond for Baltimore on the 4 A.M. steamer,¹ with a trunk containing some clothing, books, and manuscripts.

No reliable evidence exists about what happened to or within Poe between that time and October 3, a week later, when a printer named Joseph Walker saw him at Gunner’s Hall, a Baltimore tavern, strangely dressed and semiconscious.

It was Election Day for members of Congress, and like other local watering holes² the tavern served as a polling place. Poe seemed to Walker “rather the worse for wear” and “in great distress.” Apparently flooded with drink, he may also have been ill from exposure. Winds and soaking rains the day before had sent Baltimoreans prematurely hunting up overcoats and seeking charcoal fires for warmth. . . . Poe managed to tell Walker that he knew Joseph Evans Snodgrass, the Baltimore editor and physician with whom he had often corresponded while living in Philadelphia. As it happened, Walker had worked as a typesetter for Snodgrass’s Saturday Visitor. He sent Snodgrass a dire note, warning that Poe needed “immediate assistance.”

When Snodgrass arrived at Gunner’s Hall, he found Poe sitting in an armchair, surrounded by onlookers. Poe had a look of “vacant stupidity.” He wore neither vest nor tie, his dingy trousers fit badly, his shirt was crumpled, his cheap hat soiled. Snodgrass thought he must be wearing castoff clothing, having been robbed or cheated of his own. He ordered a room for Poe at the tavern, where he might stay comfortably until his relatives in Baltimore could be notified. Just then, however, one of them arrived—Henry Herring, Poe’s uncle by marriage, who somehow had also learned of his condition. A lumber dealer now nearly sixty years old, he had wed Muddy’s³ sister, and spent time with Poe during his early days in Baltimore and later when both families lived in Philadelphia. But he refused now to take over his care, saying that on former occasions, when drunk, Poe had been abusive and ungrateful. Instead, he suggested sending Poe to a hospital. A carriage was called for. Poe had to be carried into it, Snodgrass said—insensible, muttering.