Literary Hearthstones of Dixie | Page 5

"Mary," who lived but a short
distance from the home of the Clemms, and who, when the frosts of
years had descended upon her, denied having been engaged to
him--apparently because her elders were more discreet than she

was--but admitted that she cried when she heard of his death.
In his attic room on Wilks Street he toiled over the poems and tales that
some time would bring him fame.
Poe was living in Amity Street when he won the hundred-dollar prize
offered by the Saturday Visitor, with his "Manuscript Found in a
Bottle," and wrote his poem of "The Coliseum," which failed of a prize
merely because the plan did not admit of making two awards to the
same person. A better reward for his work was an engagement as
assistant editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, which led to his
removal to Richmond.
The Messenger was in a building at Fifteenth and Main Streets, in the
second story of which Mr. White, the editor, and Poe, had their offices.
The young assistant soon became sole editor of the publication, and it
was in this capacity that he entered upon the critical work which was
destined to bring him effective enemies to assail his reputation, both
literary and personal, when the grave had intervened to prevent any
response to their slanders. Not but that he praised oftener than he
censured, but the thorn of censure pricks deeply, and the rose of praise
but gently diffuses its fragrance to be wafted away on the passing
breeze. The sharp satire attracted attention to the Messenger, as attested
by the rapid growth of the subscription list.
Here Poe was surrounded by memories of his childhood. The building
was next door to that in which Ellis & Allan had their tobacco store in
Poe's school days in Richmond. The old Broad Street Theatre, on the
site of which now stands Monumental Church, was the scene of his
beautiful mother's last appearance before the public. Near Nineteenth
and Main she died in a damp cellar in the "Bird in Hand" district,
through which ran Shockoe Creek. Eighteen days later the old theatre
was burned, and all Richmond was in mourning for the dead.
At the northwest corner of Fifth and Main Streets, opposite the Allan
mansion, was the MacKenzie school for girls, which Rosalie Poe
attended in Edgar's school days. He was the only young man who
enjoyed the much-desired privilege of being received in that hall of

learning, and some of the bright girls of the institution beguiled him
into revealing the authorship of the satiric verses, "Don Pompioso,"
which caused their victim, a wealthy and popular young gentleman of
Richmond, to quit the city with undue haste. The verses were the boy's
revenge upon "Don Pompioso" for insulting remarks about the position
of Poe as the son of stage people.
On Franklin Street, between First and Second, was the Ellis home,
where Poe, with Mr. and Mrs. Allan, lived for a time after their return
from England. On North Fifth Street, near Clay, still stood the cottage
that was the next home of the Allans. At the southeast corner of
Eleventh and Broad Streets was the school which Poe had attended,
afterward the site of the Powhatan Hotel. Near it was the home of Mrs.
Stanard, whose memory comes radiantly down to us in the lines "To
Helen."
Ever since the tragedy of the Hellespont, it has been the ambition of
poets to perform a noteworthy swimming feat, and one of Poe's
schoolboy memories was of his six-mile swim from Ludlam's Wharf to
Warwick Bar.
On May 16, 1836, in Mrs. Yarrington's boarding-house, at the corner of
Twelfth and Bank Streets, Poe and Virginia Clemm were married. The
house was burned in the fire of 1865.
In January, 1837, Poe left the Messenger and went north, after which
most of his work was done in New York and Philadelphia. "The Fall of
the House of Usher" was written when he lived on Sixth Avenue, near
Waverley Place, and "The Raven" perched above his chamber door in a
house on the Bloomingdale Road, now Eighty-Fourth Street.
When living in Philadelphia Poe went to Washington for the double
purpose of securing subscribers for his projected magazine, and of
gaining a government appointment. The house in which he stayed
during his short and ill-starred sojourn in the Capital is on New York
Avenue, on a terrace with steps to a landing whence a longer flight
leads to a side entrance lost in a greenery of dark and heavy bushes. On
the opposite side is a small, square veranda. The building, which is two

stories and a half high, was apparently a cheerful yellow color in the
beginning, but it has become dingy with time and weather. The scars