The Poe Museum or the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, is a
museum located in the
Shockoe Bottom
Shockoe Bottom (also known historically as Shockoe Valley) is an area in Richmond, Virginia, just east of downtown, along the James River. Located between Shockoe Hill and Church Hill, Shockoe Bottom contains much of the land included in Colon ...
neighborhood of
Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, Californi ...
,
Virginia,
United States, dedicated to American writer
Edgar Allan Poe. Though Poe never lived in the building, it serves to commemorate his time living in Richmond. The museum holds one of the world's largest collections of original
manuscripts, letters, first editions, memorabilia and personal belongings. The museum also provides an overview of early 19th century Richmond, where Poe lived and worked. The museum features the life and career of Poe by documenting his accomplishments with pictures, relics, and verse, and focusing on his many years in Richmond.
Old Stone House
The Poe Museum is located at the "Old Stone House", built circa 1740
[Scott, Mary Wingfield, ''Houses of Old Richmond'', The Valentine Museum, Richmond, 1941, pp 7-10] and cited as the oldest original residential building in Richmond.
[APVA: Old Stone House](_blank)
It was built by Jacob Ege,
[Scott, Mary Wingfield, ''op. cit'' pp 7-10] who immigrated from Germany to
Philadelphia in 1738 and came to the James River Settlements and Col. Wm. Byrd's land grant (now known as Richmond) in the company of the family of his fiancée, Maria Dorothea Scheerer, whom he later married; the house was a "Home for the Bride."
(One of Jacob's nephews,
George Ege
George Ege (March 9, 1748December 14, 1829) was a United States Congressman, elected to the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.
Biography
He was born in Germantown in the Province of Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, to Anna Catherine (H ...
, was a member of the
U.S. House of Representatives from
Berks County, Pennsylvania
Berks County (Pennsylvania German: ''Barricks Kaundi'') is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 428,849. The county seat is Reading.
The Schuylkill River, a tributary of the Delaware Rive ...
.)
Dendrochronology
Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmos ...
suggests that additional construction on the house occurred in 1754. Jacob Ege died in 1762.
Samuel Ege, the son of Jacob and a Richmond flour inspector, owned the house in 1782 when it first appeared on a tax register.
[Scott Bergman, Sandi Bergman, ''Haunted Richmond: The Shadows of Shockoe'', Charleston 2007, p. 102](_blank)
Google Books
In 1824, when the
Marquis de Lafayette
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, ), was a French aristocrat, freemason and military officer who fought in the American Revolutio ...
revisited Richmond, a volunteer company of young Richmonders, the Junior Morgan Riflemen, rode in procession along Lafayette's carriage. One of the riflemen, the then 15-year-old Edgar Allan Poe, stood as honorguard outside the Ege house as Lafayette visited its inhabitants.
The house remained in possession of the Ege family until 1911.
Museum history
Amidst Poe's centennial in 1909, a group of Richmond residents campaigned for the city to better recognize the writer. Citizens asked the city council to erect a statue of Poe on
Monument Avenue, but were turned down because he was deemed a disreputable character. The same group went on to found the Poe Museum. ''
The New York Times'' called 1909 a banner year for acknowledgement of the importance of Poe, mentioning the Richmond museum. In 1911,
Preservation Virginia
Founded in 1889, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities was the United States' first statewide historic preservation group. In 2003 the organization adopted the new name APVA Preservation Virginia to reflect a broader focus o ...
(formerly known as the
Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities
Founded in 1889, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities was the United States' first statewide historic preservation group. In 2003 the organization adopted the new name APVA Preservation Virginia to reflect a broader focus o ...
) saved the house and opened it in 1922 as the Old Stone House.
The museum is only blocks away from the sites of Poe's Richmond homes and place of employment, the ''
Southern Literary Messenger
The ''Southern Literary Messenger'' was a periodical published in Richmond, Virginia, from August 1834 to June 1864, and from 1939 to 1945. Each issue carried a subtitle of "Devoted to Every Department of Literature and the Fine Arts" or some va ...
''. It is also a few blocks from the grave of his mother
Eliza Poe
Eliza Poe ( Elizabeth Arnold; formerly Hopkins; 1787 – December 8, 1811) was an English actress and the mother of the American author Edgar Allan Poe.
Life and career
Elizabeth Arnold was born to Henry and Elizabeth Arnold in London in th ...
who was buried in Richmond's
Church Hill neighborhood, in the graveyard of
St John's Church. Poe never lived in this home. Its completion, originally as the "Edgar Allan Poe Shrine", was announced on October 7, 1921:
This day... at a first expense of about $20,000, completes the Edgar Allan Poe Shrine, and marks the seventy-second anniversary of the death of the poet. If he is aware of mundane affairs he must be pleased to find that, at length, there has been reared to his memory a lasting and appropriate memorial.
Actor
Vincent Price, who had played in numerous film roles based on Poe stories, was a noted fan of the author. He visited the museum in 1975 and had his photo taken with the museum's renowned stuffed raven. In 2014, his daughter
Victoria Price
Mary Victoria Price (born April 27, 1962) is an American public speaker and the author of the inspirational memoir, ''The Way of Being Lost: A Road Trip to My Truest Self'' and ''Vincent Price: A Daughter's Biography''. She currently spends much ...
visited the museum, saying that Poe had been such a part of her life that she thought of him as her uncle. In 2016 Victoria Price returned to Richmond as part of a film festival featuring Poe films. The festival, in addition to a ''Poe Goes to the Movies'' ''Unhappy Hour'' with Victoria Price at the Poe Museum, presented films at Richmond's historic
Byrd Theatre
The Byrd Theatre is a cinema in the Carytown neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. It was named after William Byrd II, the founder of the city. The theater opened on December 24, 1928 to much excitement and is affectionately referred to as "Richmond ...
and ''An Evening with Victoria Price'' at the Cultural Arts Center in
Glen Allen, Virginia
Glen Allen is a census-designated place (CDP) in Henrico County, Virginia, United States. The population was 16,187 as of the 2020 Census, up from 14,774 at the 2010 census. Areas outside the CDP which use a "Glen Allen" mailing address include r ...
.
Exhibits
The Poe Museum's three buildings contain exhibits focusing on different aspects of the author's life and legacy. The parlor of the Old Stone House is used for the display of furniture from the homes in which Edgar Poe and his sister
Rosalie Mackenzie Poe lived. Of special interest in this room is a piano that once belonged to Poe's sister and Edgar's childhood bed.
The Elizabeth Arnold Poe Memorial Building includes many first and early editions of Poe's works including an 1845 publication of "
The Raven" and one of only 12 known existing copies of Poe's first collection ''
Tamerlane and Other Poems.'' Manuscripts and rare early
daguerreotypes and portraits are also exhibited there.
The North Building is dedicated to exploring Poe's mysterious death. Among the highlights of the collection displayed are Poe's vest, trunk, walking stick and a lock of his hair. There are over 26 published theories on Poe's death, but the museum postulates that the 19th century practice of
Cooping could have been a contributor to his death.
A courtyard area behind the museum includes a garden inspired by Poe's poem "
To One in Paradise." The Enchanted Garden has a fountain, a shrine, and several gardens inspired by Poe's writing, such as a rock inscribed with a character's name from
"A Tale of The Ragged Mountains" and a brick wall similar to the one described in
"William Wilson." The garden is also home to the two resident cats, Edgar and Pluto. The two black cats were found as stay kittens behind the Shrine and have lived at the museum ever since. This space is also available for weddings.
Poe Museum homepage - weddings
See also
* Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore, Maryland
* Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
*Edgar Allan Poe Cottage
The Edgar Allan Poe Cottage (or Poe Cottage) is the former home of American writer Edgar Allan Poe. It is located on Kingsbridge Road and the Grand Concourse in the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx, New York, a short distance from its origin ...
in The Bronx, New York
References
External links
Edgar Allan Poe Museum
official site
Old Stone House, 1916 East Main Street, Richmond, Independent City, VA
5 photos, 8 measured drawings, and 5 data pages at Historic American Buildings Survey
{{Edgar Allan Poe
Museums established in 1922
Edgar Allan Poe Museum
Museums in Richmond, Virginia
Houses in Richmond, Virginia
Biographical museums in Virginia
Literary museums in the United States
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Colonial architecture in Virginia
Houses completed in 1750
1922 establishments in Virginia
National Register of Historic Places in Richmond, Virginia
Historic American Buildings Survey in Virginia