Read the book: «The Home Life of Poe»

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.

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.

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.

CHAPTER II
POE'S FIRST HOME

Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie, on taking charge of the Poe children, entered into a correspondence with their grandfather, Mr. David Poe, of Baltimore, in regard to them. He was by no means anxious to claim them. He represented that he and his wife were old and poor, and that already having the eldest child, William Henry, upon his hands, he could not afford to burden himself with the others. Finally he proposed that the children should be placed in an orphan asylum, where they would be properly cared for, on hearing of which Mrs. Mackenzie declared that she would never turn the baby, Rosalie, out of her home, but would bring her up with her own children; while Mrs. Allan, who was childless and had become much attached to Edgar, proposed to her husband to adopt him.

Mr. Allan demurred. His chief objection was that the boy was the child of actors, and that to have him brought up as his son would not be advisable for him or creditable to themselves. It required some special pleading on the part of the lady, and she so far prevailed as that her husband consented to keep and care for the boy as for a son, but refused to be bound by any terms of legal responsibility as either guardian or adoptive parent, preferring to remain free to act in the future as he might think proper. Mr. Mackenzie pursued the same course with regard to Rosalie, though each bestowed on his protege his own family name in baptism.

There has been much useless discussion among Poe's biographers in regard to the ages of the children at this time. Woodbury "calculates," according to certain data obtained from a Boston newspaper regarding the appearance of Mrs. Poe on the stage. "At this time," he says, speaking of her prolonged absence in 1807, "William Henry may have been born;" and accordingly fixes Edgar's birth as having occurred two years later, in 1809.

Wishing to satisfy myself on this point, I some time since decided to go to the fountain-head for information, and wrote to Mrs. Byrd, a daughter of Mrs. Mackenzie, who had been brought up with Rosalie Poe. Her answer I have carefully preserved and here give verbatim:

"Dear S–.—You ask the ages of Rose and Edgar. He was born in 1808, Rose in 1810. A remark of his (in answer to an invitation to her wedding) was that if I had put off my marriage one week it would have been on his birthday. I was married on the 5th of October.... Their mother died on the 8th Dec., 1811; and on the 9th the children were taken to Mr. Allan's and our house.... Their mother was boarding at Mrs. Fipps', a milliner on Main street. She was Scotch and of good family; and my father and Mr. Allan had her put away decently at the old Church on the Hill.... Mr. Poe died first."

This account of the children's ages is entitled to more weight than those of his biographers, based upon mere calculation and "probabilities." When the children were baptized as Edgar Allan and Rosalie Mackenzie, their ages were also recorded, though whether in church or family records is not known; and it is not likely that Mrs. Byrd, who was brought up with Rosalie Poe, could be mistaken on this point.

Were Woodbury correct in assuming that William Henry, the eldest child, "may have been born" in October, 1807, and Edgar, January 19, 1809, it would follow that the latter, when taken charge of by the Allans in December, 1811, was less than two years old; an impossibility, considering that his sister was then over one year old and running about playing with other children. As to Mr. Poe's claim to October 12 as his birthday, it is not likely that, howsoever often he may have given a false date to others, he would have ventured upon it to the daughter of Mrs. Mackenzie, the latter of whom would have detected the error.

It must be accepted as a final conclusion that, as Mrs. Byrd states, Edgar was born in 1808 and Rosalie in 1810.² Her positive assertion is proof sufficient against all mere calculation and conjecture; and in this book I shall hold to these dates as authentic.

CHAPTER III
THE ALLAN HOME

Mr. Allan was at this time thirty-one years of age—a plain, practical business man, or, as some one has described him, "an honest, hard-headed Scotchman, kindly, but stubborn and irascible." His wife, some years younger than himself, was a beautiful woman, warm-hearted, impulsive and fond of company and amusement. Both were charitable, and though not at this time in what is called "society," were in comfortable circumstances and fond of entertaining their friends.

There was yet another member of the family, Miss Ann Valentine, an elder sister of Mrs. Allan; a lady of a lovely disposition and almost as fond of Edgar as was his so-called "mother." She was always his "Aunt Nancy."

The Allans were at this time living in the business part of the town, occupying one of a row of dingy three-story brick houses still standing on Fourteenth street, between Main and Franklin. Mr. Allan had his store on the ground floor, the family apartments being above. This was at that time and until long afterward a usual mode of living with some of the down-town merchants; though a few had already built handsome residences on Shocko Hill.

Little Edgar, bright, gay and beautiful, soon became the pet and pride of the household. Even Mr. Allan grew fond of him, and his wife delighted in taking him about and showing him off among her acquaintances. In his baggy little trousers of yellow Nankin or silk pongee, with his dark ringlets flowing over an immense "tucker," red silk stockings and peaked purple velvet cap, with its heavy gold tassel falling gracefully on one shoulder, he was the admiration of all beholders. His disposition was affectionate and his temper sweet, though having been hitherto allowed to have his own way, he was self-willed and sometimes difficult to manage. To correct his faults and as a counter balance to his wife's undue indulgence, Mr. Allan conscientiously set about training the boy according to his own ideas of what was best. When Edgar was "good" he was petted and indulged, but an act of disobedience or wrong-doing was punished, as some said, with undue severity. To shield him from this was the aim of the family, even of the servants; and the boy soon learned to resort to various little tricks and artifices on his own account. An amusing instance of this was told by Mrs. Allan herself. Edgar one day would persist in running out in the rain, when Mr. Allan peremptorily called him in, with the threat of a whipping. He presently entered and, meekly walking up to his guardian, looked him in the face with his large, solemn gray eyes and held out a bunch of switches. "What are these for?" inquired the latter. "To whip me with," answered the little diplomat; and Mr. Allan had to turn aside to hide a smile, for the "switches" had been selected with a purpose, being only the long, tough leaf-stems of the alanthus tree.

Another anecdote I recall illustrative of the strict discipline to which Edgar was subject.

My uncle, Mr. Edward Valentine, who was a cousin of Mrs. Allan, and often a visitor at her house, was very fond of Edgar; and liking fun almost as much as did the child, taught him many amusing little tricks. One of these was to snatch away a chair from some big boy about to seat himself; but Edgar, too young to discriminate, on one occasion made a portly and dignified old lady the subject of this performance. Mr. Allan, who in his anger was always impulsive, immediately led away the culprit, and his wife took the earliest opportunity of going to console her pet. As the child was little over three years old, it may be doubted whether the punishment administered was the wisest course, but it was Mr. Allan's way, who apparently believed in the moral suasion of the rod.

Edgar had no dogs and no pony, and did not ride out with a groom to attend him, "like a little prince," as a biographer has represented. At this time the Allans' circumstances were not such as to admit of such luxuries. As to his appearance in this style at the famous White Sulphur Springs, that is equally mythical.³

There was, however, at least one summer when Edgar was six years of age in which the Allans were at one of the lesser Virginia springs, and in returning paid a visit to Mr. Valentine's family, near Staunton. This gentleman often took Edgar out with him, either driving or seated behind him on horseback; and on receiving his paper from the country post-office would make the boy read the news to the mountain rustics, who regarded him as a prodigy of learning. Thus far he had been taught by an old Scotch dame who kept an "infant-school," and who then and for years afterward called him "her ain wee laddie," and to whom as long as she lived he was accustomed to carry offerings of choice smoking tobacco. He also learned from her to speak in the broad Scottish dialect, which greatly amused and pleased Mr. Allan. The boy was at even this age remarkably quick in learning anything.

Mr. Valentine also delighted in getting up wrestling matches between Edgar and the little pickaninnies with whom he played, rewarding the victor with gifts of money. But there was one thing which no money or other reward could induce the boy to undertake, and this was to go near the country churchyard after sunset, even in company with these same little darkies. Once, in riding home late, Edgar being seated behind Mr. Valentine, they passed a deserted log-cabin, near which were several graves, when the boy's nervous terror became so great that he attempted to get in front of his companion, who took him on the saddle before him. "They would run after us and pull me off," he said, betraying at even this early age the weird imagination of his maturer years.

This incident led to his being questioned, when it was discovered that he had been accustomed to go with his colored "mammy" to the servants' rooms in the evenings, and there listen to the horrible stories of ghosts and graveyard apparitions such as this ignorant and superstitious race delight in. It is not improbable that the gruesome sketch of the "Tempest" family, one of his earliest published, whose ghosts are represented as seated in coffins around a table in an undertaker's shop, and thence flying back to their near-by graves, was not inspired by some such story heard in Mr. Allan's kitchen.

Undoubtedly, these ghostly narratives, heard at this early and impressionable age, served in part to produce those weird and ghoulish imaginings which characterize some of Poe's writings, and to create that tinge of superstition which was well known to his friends. He always avoided cemeteries, hated the sight of coffins and skeletons, and would never walk alone at night even on the street; believing that evil spirits haunted the darkness and walked beside the lonely wayfarer, watching to do him a mischief. Death he loathed and feared, and a corpse he would not look upon. And yet, as bound by a weird fascination, he wrote continually of death.

Edgar Poe, like every other Southern child, had his negro "mammy" to attend to him until he went to England, to whom and the other servants he was as much attached as they to him. Indeed, a marked trait of his character was his liking for negroes, the effect of early association, and to the end of his life he delighted in talking with them and in their quaint and kindly humor and odd modes of thought and expression.

Edgar had been about three years with the Allans when he was again deprived of a home and sent among strangers. Mr. Allan went on a business trip to England and Scotland, accompanied by his wife, Miss Valentine and Edgar; the latter of whom was put to school in London, where he must have felt his loneliness and isolation. Still, he came to the Allans in holiday times, and was with them in Scotland for some months previous to their return to Virginia. Little is known of them during this absence of five years.