Dark Destinations

General

Dark Destinations

Dark Traveler Library

Horror Blogs

General Horror Quotes

Dark Destinations > Locations - P > The Poe Museum

Clear Markers

| Show Street View Overlay

The Poe Museum

Other destinations within a
mile radius.

Nearby Destinations:

	Haunts of Richmond
	St. John's Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA
	Richmond Virginia Zombie Walk
	Shockoe Hill Cemetery, Richmond, VA
	Clifton Haunted Trail, Clifton, VA
	Bunny Man Bridge
	Bunny Man: First Encounter at Guinea Road
	Bunny Man: Second Encounter at Guinea Road
	Huntclub Farm Halloween Festival & Haunted Hayride
	Washington DC Zombie Lurch
Displaying 10 of 32 View All on Map

Availability:	Open to the Public
Filed Under:	Museums/Libraries/Exhibitions Personalities > Literature > Edgar Allan Poe
Added By:	Tom G
Added On:	December 10, 2007 - 09:23 PM UTC
Last Modified:	February 13, 2009 - 08:56 PM UTC
Your Rating:	Sign in to add your rating
Average Rating:	0 (0 ratings)
Visited By:	0 Users

Address
1914 E Main St, Richmond, VA 23223, USA (Richmond, Virginia)

Information
The Poe Museum Also known as the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia consists of four buildings, including the oldest surviving house in the original city limits. The museum, which is run by volunteers, is situated a short distance down the street from where Edgar Allan Poe once lived and worked (in buildings that no longer stand). The grave of Poe's mother, actress Elizabeth "Eliza" Arnold Hopkins Poe, is only half a mile away. The museum's displays and exhibits deal with Poe's life as a whole, but has a noticeable and understandable leaning specifically toward Poe's connections with Richmond and the city itself during the era in which Poe lived. Poe's Early Life in Richmond Edgar Allan Poe spent many years living in Richmond, Virginia. He came to live with a foster family there after his mother died on December 8, 1811 (his father had abandoned them the year prior). Poe was merely a toddler at the time. The foster family, the Allans, are the source of Poe's middle name. Around the age of six the young Poe was taken overseas with his family, returning to Richmond at age eleven. He remained there until he left to attend college at the University of Virginia in 1826, at the age of 17. He left the state of Virginia entirely in the following year after racking up gambling debts and becoming estranged from his foster father. Poe would not return to Richmond until 1829, when he and his foster father reconciled following the death of his foster mother. The visit would be brief and before long the relationship between Poe and the only father-figure he'd ever really known would disintegrate to the point where Poe was disowned entirely (he'd never been officially adopted anyhow). John Allan's bitterness toward his foster son was made all the more apparent when he left Poe out of his will. Allan chose to give money to illegitimate offspring he'd never even met rather than leave anything to the child he had raised himself. Rosalie Mackenzie Poe and Sarah Elmira Royster Edgar Allan Poe had two siblings from his biological parents. After the death of their mother, the children were raised separately. His brother William Henry Leonard Poe was raised by relatives back in Baltimore, Maryland. Like Edgar, his sister Rosalie Mackenzie Poe was raised by a foster family in Richmond. Unlike her famous brother, Rosalie spent the majority of her life in Richmond and didn't leave until her foster family abandoned her in her later years. She died poor and alone at the Epiphany Church Home in Washington D.C. and is buried there in Rock Creek Cemetery. In life, Rosalie was a talented musician despite being generally regarded as an unintelligent woman. Her piano forte is among the items displayed in the museum in Richmond. Another Richmond woman who Edgar Allan Poe had close connection with was Sarah Elmira Royster (she went by her middle name). Elmira was both the first and last love of Poe's life. Edgar fell in love with her when he was sixteen years of age and she is known to have been both an inspiration and recipient of his early poetry (some of which is displayed on the museum walls). Their love had to be kept secret for Elmira's father disliked the young Poe. Ultimately, the father's interference did disrupt the relationship and drove Elmira into the arms of her future husband, Alexander B. Shelton. When Poe returned from his disastrous year at University of Virginia, his discovery of Elmira's engagement to another man was probably another development that led to his leaving Virginia behind. Later in life Edgar Allan Poe and Elmira (now Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton) met once again. By this time the two were both young widows. Apparently romance was rekindled between the two. The two either became engaged or at least flirted with the idea as apparent from letters written by both during this time. However, Poe died weeks after the alleged proposal. A stipulation in Alexander Shelton's will stated that Elmira would lose a very significant portion of her inheritance should she ever remarry following his death. There are some who have theorized that Poe's death may have been caused intentionally or unintentionally by relatives of Elmira who sought to discourage the relationship from progressing further. The Southern Literary Messenger The magazine known as The Southern Literary Messenger was founded in 1834 by Thomas Willis White. The magazine was published in Richmond. Poe began contributing articles and short stories in August of 1835. By September Poe was hired as acting literary editor. He served in this capacity until January of 1837. During his time with the publication its readership increased from roughly 500 to somewhere around 3,500, making it the most popular publication in the Southern United States at that time. Poe's salary while at the magazine was around $800 a year when combined with sales of his writing. There are stories about Poe's drinking habits interfering with his work, but it appears that he left the publication by his own choice in an attempt earn a higher salary elsewhere. He would continue to write for The Southern Literary Messenger after leaving his post as editor. Unfortunately for Poe, he never would find reasonable pay for his work. The Southern Literary Messenger would outlive both Thomas White and Edgar Allan Poe, ending its publication run in 1864. A desk said to have been used in the offices of The Southern Literary Messenger during Poe's tenure is on display in the Poe Museum. The museum's collection also includes the chair in which Poe sat while he worked there. History of the Museum The roots of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum began in 1909, when a group of Richmond citizens campaigned to have a statue of Poe erected on Monument Avenue in the city. The proposal was apparently shot down by city council members due to the poorer aspects of the author's reputation. In 1911, The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities took possession of the structure known as The Old Stone House. The group of local Poe fans who had proposed the statue in 1909 became involved and transformed the place into a museum dedicated to the author. The museum opened to the public in 1922. Over time the museum expanded to include three more buildings. The Elizabeth Arnold Poe Memorial Building, The Model Building and the Exhibits Building. Edgar Allan Poe Exhibits and Artifacts The museum displays artifacts connected with Poe, including the bed he slept in as a child, a silk vest he wore, a pair of socks and a lock of Poe's hair taken from his head after his death. The Poe Museum is the only museum to have items of Poe's clothing in their possession. Another item on exhibit is the key to his travel trunk (also on display), which was among the items found in his pocket when he was discovered in a state of delirium shortly before his death. Poe's cane is also on display. A couple of weeks prior to his death, Poe visited his friend, Dr. John Carter. When Poe left Carter's residence he left his walking stick behind and took one belonging to his friend, possibly by accident. After Poe's death, Carter retrieved his own walking stick (a sword cane) from the dead author's belongings and kept Poe's actual cane as well. It eventually came into possession of the museum. There are also exhibits that inform visitors about details of Poe's family life, love life and career while he lived in Richmond (including his brief time working for The Southern Literary Messenger). The museum has items that once belonged to Poe's loved ones, including his wife Virginia Clemm. Virginia's portrait hangs in the museum near a mirror and a trinket box that both belonged to her once. The museum even has a soup ladle that belonged to the Poe family, and candlesticks that belonged to his friend Mary Louise Shew. The museum has a mixture of permanent and temporary exhibits. The temporary or rotating exhibits are kept in the Exhibits Building. The permanent exhibits can be found scattered among the buildings. One exhibit, called The Raven Room, displays illustrations by James Carling of Poe's The Raven. Another exhibit, titled Lord, Have Mercy on My Poor Soul, reveals and discusses the many theories surrounding the mysterious death of Edgar Allan Poe. Books on Display and in the Museum Library The museum holds one of the largest collections of Poe letters, manuscripts, first editions and memorabilia. Among the writings on display is a first edition copy of The Raven and Other Poems and the poem Siope on the paper it was originally handwritten upon by Poe. There is also a textbook dealing with conchology (the study of mollusk shells) that became controversial due to accusations of plagiarism. The text, The Conchologist's First Book, originally existed under the title Manual of Conchology by Thomas Wyatt. Wyatt was unhappy with the high price placed on his first manual and decided to republish the book while circumventing his original publisher. He revised a little of the textbook and paid Poe $50 to write a new preface and introduction so that the book could be released under Poe's name through another publisher. Poe accepted the deal out of a desperate need for money and paid with his reputation. When the publisher of Wyatt's first text discovered what had happened, they blacklisted Poe and refused to publish any more of his work. It was further discovered after the fact that Thomas Wyatt had plagiarized large sections of his text from Thomas Brown's The Conchologist's Textbook. Not all of the books and manuscripts in the museum are on display. The museum holds a number of writings by and about Poe in a library in which the items can be read. The museum's library is available by appointment only. Contact information for the museum is available through their Web site, which is listed below. The Actors' Monument to Edgar Allan Poe Another item on display is the Actors' Monument to Edgar Allan Poe (also referred to as the Actors' Memorial to Poe). Commissioned in 1882 by the Actors Guild of New York, this sculpture was created by Richard Henry Park for donation to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The marble sculpture depicts a woman placing a wreath around a circular bas-relief bronze portrait of Edgar Allan Poe. The woman is meant to represent fame. A plaque below the portrait of Poe gives a brief description of who Poe was as well as giving reason for why the Actors Guild had it made. The sculpture was unveiled in a ceremony at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 4, 1885. Edwin Booth (brother of presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth), the president of the guild at the time, spoke on behalf of the Actors Guild of New York. The event was dotted with multiple speeches and poetry readings as well as chorus and orchestra performances. The Reverend William Rounseville Alger of Boston, Massachusetts gave a very long speech entitled The Mission and Errors of Genius as Seen in the Personality and Works of Edgar Allan Poe. A tiny excerpt from his speech follows: "How sad was the career, how dark the fate, of the proud dazzling, ill-starred unspeakably afflicted genius we are this day commemorating - overwhelmed with poverty, unappreciated by his contemporaries, beset with calamity, the lights of paradise and the flames of perdition contending in his breast. He was not a bad man in the proper sense of the term; that is, one who willfully preys on others. According to all the evidence, he has been a constant victim of misinterpretation, now ignorantly abused, now unfairly caricatured, now wantonly belied. He had many qualities which compel admiration, and many traits which are worthy of love - his extraordinary intellectuality, his imaginative worship of beauty, his ideal enthusiasm for literary art, his ineffaceable memory of the dead, his unfailing devotion to his wife and mother. He was not in any sense or in any approach a man of deliberate depravity. The worst that can be justly said against him is that he was stained with vicious wickedness - was variously defective and sinful; while his life was a series of trials, griefs, disappointments and tortures which in their intense and fearful array appeal irresistibly for the compassion of every chivalrous nature and the charitable judgments of mankind. Terribly indeed did he atone for his faults such as they were. For more than ten years he gave the world the dread sight of his genius, a kinglier Laoco�n, constricted and strangling in the coils of the crueler serpents, pride, appetite, and neglect. And he was deeply and darkly conscious of it, impotently struggling against it, til the divine torch, lighted at first in the sky, went out at last in the gutter." The unveiling of the sculpture was widely attended and the speeches given at the event were collected in The Dedication Exercises of the Actors' Monument to Edgar Allan Poe. It is fitting that the Actors Guild created the monument. Both of Poe's biological parents were actors by profession. While he may not have gotten to know his birth parents and experience any memorable praise from them, he did receive high praise from the broader family of actors. The Old Stone House The building known as the Old Stone House acts as the entrance for the Poe Museum. The house was built by a man named Jacob Ege. While there were claims that the house was built as early as 1607, tree-ring dating of the floorboards suggests the house was built in or around 1754. Jacob's son Samuel Ege inherited the home from his father. Samuel served as Commissary to the Continental troops under the Marquis de Lafayette (Gilbert du Moiter) during the American Revolutionary War. The house was one of the few houses in Richmond spared being set aflame when Benedict Arnold led British troops into the city. The story has it that the home was spared because a British officer was staying there. Many years later, in 1824, Edgar Allan Poe came to the Ege house as a member of the Junior Morgan Rifleman. He and the other members of this color guard unit were escorts for Lafayette during his visit to Richmond that year. Poe stood outside the home, while Lafayette was entertained by the Ege family. This is the only known direct connection between The Old Stone House and Poe himself before it became a museum dedicated to him, though he undoubtedly would have walked by it regularly. It was the first building on the property to serve as part of the museum when it opened in 1922. The Enchanted Garden The museum features a courtyard and the "Enchanted Garden." The garden, which was created in 1922 for the museum's opening, has a shrine built from bricks taken from the demolition of The Southern Literary Messenger building. The construction of the shrine predates the garden's creation. Its completion, at a cost of roughly $20,000 was announced on October 7, 1921 (the 72-year anniversary of Poe's death). Within the shrine stands a bust of Poe. This is not the original bust that was placed within the shrine. The original bust was stolen in 1987. It was later discovered on the bar of The Raven Inn with a drink sitting in front of it. The garden was inspired by Poe's poem To One in Paradise, which begins as follows: Thou wast all that to me, love, For which my soul did pine- A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. Like the poem, the garden has a fountain and a shrine with plant-life that mimic the visuals as well. The Enchanted Garden also has stone walkways and benches. Books by and about Poe are stored in safe place in the garden for those who wish to sit and read on the benches. The garden is also available for wedding ceremonies. Other Exhibits One of the items on display is a scale model of a section of Richmond as it appeared during the life of Edgar Allan Poe. The model depicts the area from 5th Street through 25th street. The model was created by Edith Ragland with the help of Edward Valentine over a two year stretch, reaching completion in 1927. Fire in the Museum In November of 1999, a fire broke out in the Model Building (which houses the museum's model of Richmond in Poe's time). The fire began in the early morning hours and didn't cause any injuries. A rapid response by Richmond's firefighters resulted in the blaze being being brought quickly under control. Their quick action spared many artifacts and exhibits in the museum. Ultimately, the museum suffered $30,000 in damages. Most of the fire damage was to the structure of the building, with the exhibits largely spared. Events at the Museum From April through October, the museum holds a monthly event called the "Unhappy Hour". The event includes free admission to the museum, performances by musicians and other performers, a cash bar, light refreshments and guided tours. The museum also holds a memorial service for Edgar Allan Poe on or near the anniversary of Poe's death (October 7, 1849) each year. There is a Halloween event also held in October called "Poe's Pumpkin Patch." This second October event is aimed at children. The museum has also screened films at times, including a 2008 showing of Hitchcock's Vertigo on the wall of the museum garden. The museum held a 24-hour event on January 19, 2009 in celebration of Poe's two-hundredth birthday. The event began with a champagne toast in Poe's honor in the museum's shrine shortly after midnight. Other aspects of the celebration included a Victorian s�ance, a cake, readings and performances, and guided tours of Poe locations around the city (including one done by candlelight and another one mentioned below). Prospective visitors should check the museum's Web site for news of planned events. The Web site is listed below this article. Visiting the Poe Museum The Poe Museum continues to update with the times, making use of advances in technology. The museum has an audio tour in the form of MP3 files available through its web site. It is encouraged for potential visitors to download the files to an MP3 player if they wish to use the audio tour while visiting the museum. There are also efforts being made to digitize the museum's literary collection. Eventually, Web surfers will be able to peruse the museum's library on-line. The museum even offered tours of Poe sites throughout the city of Richmond that were conducted on Segways during celebrations on the two-hundredth birthday of Poe. The museum also creates interactive experiences for prearranged group tours. The group tours are aimed at school groups at different levels of education. They also involve actors performing readings and re-enactments of events both historical and fictional. The group tours also make use of scavenger hunts and sometimes mock crime scene investigations and trials to further involve groups in the world of Poe. Visitors can purchase keepsakes of their visit from the museums gift shop, located in the Old Stone House. It offers shirts, glassware, books, DVDs, CDs, action figures, key chains and other Poe-related novelties. Potential visitors to the museum should check the museum's Web site (listed below) for hours of operation and any other details.

GPS Interface
Save Waypoint to Garmin Device.


User Trips
There are no user trips associated with this location.

Related Sites
The Poe Museum Web site for The Poe Museum, located in Richmond, Virginia.
Wikipedia: Edgar Allan Poe Wikipedia entry for author and poet Edgar Allan Poe.
NY Times: Unveiling of the Actors' Monument to Edgar Allan Poe An article from May 5, 1885, covering the previous day's unveiling of a statue honoring author Edgar Allan Poe in NYC.

Similar Destinations
Ford's Theatre National Historical Site
Free Library of Philadelphia - Central Library
Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum

See Also on TheCabinet.com
Blog: Happy 200 to Edgar Allan Poe! (01/19/09)
Blog: How Sad Was the Career, How Dark the Fate... (05/04/09)

Available from Amazon.com
The Dedication Exercises Of The Actors' Monument To Edgar Allan Poe (1885)
Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
The Comedy of Terrors/The Raven
The Fall of the House of Usher /The Pit and the Pendulum
Listen & Read Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven and Other Poems (Listen & Read)
The Raven And Other Poems And Stories (Scholastic Classics)
Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Edgar Allan Poe Figure
I Love Edgar Allan Poe Mug

User Options

	Edit this Location
	Manage Categories
	Add/Edit Related Sites
	Add/Edit Images
	Add/Edit My Trip
	Set Up Reminder
	User Trips (0)
	Comments (0)
	Dark Destinations Search
	Print Location

Images
There are no images associated with this location.

The above content is for informational purposes only. Before making any travel arrangements, it is highly recommended that you contact those in charge of the property to check for updated availability and hours of operation. While we do our best to keep this information updated, we cannot guarantee that it is completely valid and up to date. Any destination marked "Closed to the Public" is marked that for a reason and we discourage any visits or attempts to gain access to that facility. Similarly, take note of any "Travel Advisory" that may be associated with a destination. Finally, treat any location and its local residents with respect. Any vandalism and/or unruly behavior is completely despicable and only ruins the experience for future visitors.

There are 0 comments in the database.
User Comments	Order by: Most Recent \| Originally Submitted
There are currently no comments for this entry.

There are 0 comments in the database.
Add Comment \| Return to Index

Dark Destinations Search

Dark Destinations | Dark Traveler Library | Horror Blogs |
General Horror Quotes