Dead Poet's Society

Edgar Allan Poe continues to entertain and inspire Baltimoreans from beyond the grave.

- Kaitlyn Pacheco

On a dark and still afternoon in October 1849, five people stood watch as a simple mahogany coffin containing one of the world’s most prolific authors was lowered into an unmarked patch of dirt in the heart of downtown Baltimore.

With clouds hanging low in the autumn sky, the small crowd—a former classmate, schoolmaster, and three relatives—paused for only a few minutes in the freshly turned earth, with the reverend, who was also the deceased’s cousin, electing not to deliver his prepared sermon to so few people.

Without pomp, circumstance, or even a tombstone to mark Edgar Allan Poe’s death, the group quietly dispersed, leaving the 40-year-old poet buried in Lot 27 of the Westminster Burial Ground with his grandparents, older brother, and the mysterious truth of his death.

Poe only lived in Baltimore for a few years, but the city shaped many aspects of his life, as well as its tragic ending. While he was born in Boston in January 1809 and raised by a foster family in Richmond, Virginia, this city is where he found the familial connections that would become the backbone of his life and career.

Between his unsuccessful stints in the Army and at West Point, Poe spent a few months in 1829 sharing a room with his cousin at the Beltzhoover’s Hotel on the corner of Hanover and Baltimore streets. He became a regular at The Assembly Rooms & Library on Holliday and Fayette streets, participated in a verse-writing challenge at the Seven Stars Tavern on Water Street downtown, and published 250 copies of his second book, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems.