Poe’s Shockoe - The Lovely Ladies
by Alyson Taylor-White
Every dark and dreary January, hundreds of faithful fans
flock to Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom to celebrate the birth of the nation’s most
talented, and perhaps quirkiest author. The great news for us is that we claim
him even though he was born in Boston. Clustered against the cold, they crowd
into the ancient brick Poe Shrine, and after heaving a collective sigh, extinguish
the many candles on Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday cake. This year he would have turned 208.
Eager
enthusiasts of Edgar Allan Poe await the cutting of the
birthday cake by a proxy
Poe. Photo/Kelly Keener.
After a
daylong celebration filled with reenactments, readings, and related hubbub,
it’s always fun to imagine what Poe himself would think about all this. In particular, what would Poe think his
hometown of Richmond, Virginia today?
Fortunately
for us, even though two centuries have passed since he grew up here, it is easy
to see and experience many of the same sights and sounds he did. Nowhere is this more evident than places with
the word “Shockoe” in them. Poe lived
for the most part with his foster parents John and Frances Allan in several
places in and around Shockoe Hill’s neighborhoods of Court End and Gamble’s
Hill. Poe played, fished, ran and swam
around Shockoe Bottom, Shockoe Creek, and the James River. As a teenager, he
set a six-mile record swimming against the current of the rocky James. And just about everybody he loved, and a few
he did not love, are buried at Shockoe Hill Cemetery.
Map
of Poe’s Richmond. From Edgar Allan Poe:
the Man, by Mary Phillips, 1926
Like a lot
of other famous Richmond sons and daughters, stories and legends abound about
Poe. “I am a Virginian,” he once wrote a
friend. “Or at least I call myself
one.” Local lore is rich with tales
about him that are mostly true, partly true, or almost as good as the
truth.
The
grave of Jane Stanard, Poe’s inspiration for “To Helen.” Photo/author.
If we could
somehow place Poe right in front of Monumental Church on Broad Street, he would
be able to figure out his way around Richmond fairly easily. The church would be very familiar to him. Inside is the pew where he and his foster
mother Frances Keeling Valentine Allan worshipped. As many people know,
Monumental stands on the site of the horrific 1811 theater fire that claimed the
lives of 72 victims. Worshipping there
as a boy, Poe would have been aware of the grim fact that the theater fire
victims are entombed in a crypt beneath the church. Both of Poe’s birth parents had performed as
actors in that theater. He later
fantasized that they were killed in that famous inferno, but it simply was not
the case.
Just a
short distance away is a place Poe knew well.
Shockoe Hill Cemetery was created in 1822 and is the first city-owned cemetery. As old St. John’s Churchyard filled, city
officials looked around for space for public and private burials. They found an available parcel to the west of
the city, near the Alms House, Hebrew Burial Ground, and the burial ground for
free and enslaved persons of color. It
is at today’s 4th and Hospital Streets.
If fate had
been kinder to Poe, and to the rest of us, he would have lived a good, long
life, written a lot more, and would enjoy eternal rest there as well. If you
know anything about his biography, however, you will know that fate was seldom
if ever kind to him. Nonetheless, it is
easy to speculate where he would be buried.
He would, and should be right next to his long Lost Lenore, his first and last fiancée, Sarah Elmira Royster
Shelton. Perhaps one day he will be. There are several precedents for this. Richmonders have never been hesitant to retrieve
someone and reassign them where they want them.*
We are
fortunate in that there is an embarrassment of riches in Poe landmarks all over
Richmond, but Shockoe Hill Cemetery is a great place to explore in order to really
get to know him. Located in Jackson
Ward, the original cemetery entrance is through an old ornamental front gate on
Hospital Street. Originally intended for
the city’s elite, the New Burial Ground as it was originally called, was
carefully laid out in a grid pattern like Richmond itself. Careful efforts went into choosing trees and
other plants according to the symbolism of floriography, then in full bloom.
Neighbors from upscale city sections like Court End, Capitol Square, and
Gamble’s Hill reserved park like plots near their friends and family. It also served as a burial place for less fortunate
individuals, as this was the only public cemetery available for years. Old St. John’s Churchyard had long since
filled. Consequently, there are parts of
town in Shockoe Hill, just like the city that surrounded it. Some sections are obviously more affluent with
expensive, elegantly carved tombstones.
Others are barren of any markers whatsoever.
Edgar Allan
Poe knew a lot of folks who ended up in Shockoe Hill Cemetery. They were his
neighbors, his playmates growing up, his foster family, and his sweethearts. The most famous resident, and one who Poe
certainly knew personally was Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, the
longest serving Chief Justice of the United States. Poe may have had a passing acquaintance with
a woman who would go on to be known as the Yankee Spy, Elizabeth Van Lew. She lived in a huge mansion in one of
Richmond’s oldest and most exclusive enclaves, Church Hill. His beloved Elmira Shelton lived just east of
the Van Lews on Grace Street in a house she rented from them.
An
early 20th century illustration of Poe.
One persistent
local legend tied to Poe concerns the grave of an individual who probably
inspired his uniquely weird version of a female protagonist. We can take pride
in the fact that most likely he cultivated his peculiar perspective right here
in Richmond. Even as a teenager, Poe knew he was more than slightly different. His parents had both been actors, not the
most stable of pedigrees. His nouveau riche foster parents John and Frances
Allan never formerly adopted him. From
an early age, he had a sense of being on the edge of Richmond’s comfortable middle
class, yet never really belonging. He
grew up as the ultimate outsider.
“Alone”
When he was in his mid teens, Poe accompanied a friend home one day to Rob Stanard’s house near Capitol Square. There he was struck by the stunning good looks of Rob’s mother, Jane Stith Craig Stanard. He later told poet Helen Whitman that Jane Stanard was his first truly ideal love. It was certainly a platonic bond, since she was twice his age. He also later revealed that her beauty was such that when he first saw her, he almost lost consciousness. Stanard married into an affluent family, and came from Richmond nobility herself. Her father was Adam Craig, the Henrico County Clerk of Court whose house, possibly where Jane was born, still stands in Shockoe Bottom. Jane Stanard was perfect for Poe. She was beautiful. She was kind. She offered him the unconditional attention all teenagers crave. And she probably encouraged his writing. He became intensely smitten with her. As if on cue, she became mysteriously ill, went insane, and tragically died. Those who could remember, and some who thought they could, recalled seeing Poe meandering mournfully to Shockoe Hill Cemetery after her death. There he was seen kneeling or sometimes weeping inconsolably at her grave. Future heroines of his would resemble Jane Stanard. They were often intellectual, beautiful, and dying or even deceased. They haunted his narrators (and readers) from the grave. Poe admitted that his passionate poem To Helen was dedicated to her.From childhood’s hour I have not beenAs others were—I have not seenAs others saw—I could not bringMy passions from a common spring—From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow—I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone—And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—Then—in my childhood—in the dawnOf a most stormy life—was drawnFrom ev’ry depth of good and illThe mystery which binds me still—From the torrent, or the fountain—From the red cliff of the mountain—From the sun that ’round me roll’dIn its autumn tint of gold—From the lightning in the skyAs it pass’d me flying by—From the thunder, and the storm—And the cloud that took the form(When the rest of Heaven was blue)Of a demon in my view—
Elmira’s
house in Church Hill where Poe courted her in 1849. Photo/author.
His foster
mother Frances Allan was another significant woman in Poe’s life. Sadly, she died when he was away from
home. Always a sickly woman, according to
the cemetery records, asthma finally caused her death. Poe arrived home too
late for her funeral. She’d been the only real mother he’d known when she and
John Allan took the baby Poe into their home in 1811. While she adored and spoiled her foster son,
John Allan was said to have been dour and stern with him, perhaps natural to
his Scottish roots. As Poe aged, the
relationship with he and his “Pa” deteriorated, perhaps due to Allan’s known
dalliances with other women in Richmond.
After Frances died, animosity with John Allan grew over support that Poe
felt entitled to as the foster son of a wealthy merchant. Relations further chilled when, within a
brief period, Allan married a much younger woman who produced three legitimate
male heirs in quick succession. The
second Mrs. Allan would not allow Poe in the house. The foster son and father never reconciled,
and Poe was not left anything in the estate. It is worth noting that the second
Mrs. Allan outlived her husband by quite a few years. It is worth noting that her tombstone is much
larger that her predecessor. There in the family plot John Allan lies between
his two wives.
The
gravesite of Poe’s foster parents the Allans. Photo/Jeffry Burden.
Down the hill
in an unmarked grave lies a girl who danced divinely with Poe. When he returned to Richmond for a job as
editor of the Southern Literary
Messenger, young Poe briefly squired publisher Thomas White’s daughter
Eliza around the fashionable social scene. They created quite a complimentary
contrast, twirling and swirling around ballrooms in Richmond with her long
blond hair, and with his dark, dramatic good looks. Observers said the only emotion he betrayed
on the dance floor was in his large gray eyes. Southern Literary Messenger owner Thomas White gave Poe his first journalism
job. This launched Poe as an acerbic
critic on an unsuspecting literary stage. His fierce criticism would earn him
the sobriquet of “the Tomahawk Man.” White
often speculated that Poe only read other authors in order to eviscerate them
editorially. It is said that White forbad
his editor from pursuing his dear daughter Eliza. Whether or not this is the case, she remained
unmarried to the end of her days. She was one of the few wedding guests present
at Poe’s wedding in Richmond to his cousin, Virginia Clemm. Though Eliza
White’s grave is unmarked, a memento mori of hers may be seen at the Poe Museum
in the form of a large lock of her flaxen hair.
Poe’s love
life begins and ends with Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton. While it is a fact that from an early age,
Poe was in love with the idea of love, he most likely really did have affection
for Elmira. They were teenagers when they first became secretly engaged in a
garden on the site of what is today’s Linden Row Inn. Then they became unengaged as soon as her
father caught wind of it. Like a lot of
parents, Royster thought his daughter could do better than an alliance with a
penniless orphan. Even though the Allans
spared no expense in raising Poe, it was common knowledge around town that
there was no love lost between the boy and his foster father. That might have been because of the fact that
Allan had well-known dalliances with women other than his wife that resulted in
illegitimate offspring. While Poe was at
Mr. Jefferson’s new university at Charlottesville, Elmira’s father intercepted
their love letters. She said later it
was because her father thought them too young for such a serious commitment. She
eventually married a prosperous man her family chose as a more suitable match. However happy she might have been, it did not
prevent her from wistfully wondering what might have been when she saw Poe
squiring his young bride Virginia around town. Elmira said she had to remind
herself that she herself was a married woman.
Suppressed desires can sometimes be the most irresistible. It is likely had things gone her way in 1849,
Elmira and Poe would have married when he returned to his hometown and settled
down as a successful author. By that time, she was a wealthy widow, and he’d
been a widower since 1847. Unfortunately for her and for us, Poe left his
fiancée in Richmond allegedly on a business trip, promising to return, never to
do so. To add insult to injury, Elmira
learned of his sudden mysterious death in Baltimore by reading about it in the
paper. Of all of Poe’s lovely ladies in Shockoe Hill Cemetery, Elmira’s tabletop
marker gets the most attention. It is
often covered with stones and other mementoes for remembrance from Poe fans visiting
from all over the world.
There are
many more stories about both Poe and others to explore in a historic landmark
like Shockoe Hill Cemetery. These tombstone tales also reveal a lot about early
Richmond, Virginia that are seldom found elsewhere.
*Ask James Monroe, who was happily dead and buried in New
York when the developers of Hollywood Cemetery repatriated his remains when
they needed a celebrity to promote burials to their new, private necropolis on the
James.
- Alyson Taylor-White
Allyson is a
historian and instructor of Richmond and Petersburg history at the University
of Richmond. History Press will publish
her book on Richmond’s Shockoe Hill Cemetery this year.
