BALTIMORE – For decades, Halloween and Edgar Allen Poe have been intertwined for citizens of this city, where his mortal remains reside. But some Poe acolytes argue the writer’s final resting place has been shrouded by a mystery worthy of one of his macabre tales.
A faction of Poe disciples have long argued that the corpse below the family monument in Westminster churchyard at Fayette and Greene streets is not the writer but — because of a long-ago disinterment mix-up — James Mosher, a veteran of the War of 1812 killed in the Battle of North Point.
“Perfect for Poe,” said George Figgs, a self-taught local scholar devoted to the manifold oddities of Crabtown. “He’s not even buried where he’s supposed to be.” To believe that, one must buy into an intricate yarn spun by Figgs, who is convinced Poe’s mysterious death on Oct. 7, 1849, at age 40, was the result of a kidnapping motivated by greed, resentment and literary envy.
“Poe was set up!” declares Figgs, author of “The Poe Mystery.”
“By strange quirks of fate, he wound up in Baltimore in the clutches of enemies,” said Figgs, who purports to have filled in holes in the final week of Poe’s life using original letters from and to the writer archived at the University of Virginia.
Any new scholarship on Poe that gained acceptance would be of major import to Baltimore, where residents celebrate each Halloween with many toasts to his gothic and sometimes ghoulish works.
“Gloomy stuff,” said Gary Blankenburg a Baltimore poet who sent generations of students from Catonsville High School into the world with more than a bit of Poe in their psyches. “I think children are pretty miserable in general, and Poe confirms for them that their misery is well taken.”
Figgs is not the first local resident to take a crack at a new interpretation of the events surrounding Poe’s demise. David Michael Ettlin, a lifelong Baltimorean, said he has encountered manner of Poe legends in his 40-year career as a local reporter.
But Figgs’ ornate and atmospheric tale attempts to set Poe scholarship on its ear. As with so many Baltimore stories, it begins in a drinking establishment in Fells Point.
“It started about 20 years ago with a bar bet — ‘Where in Baltimore was Mr. Poe found just before he died?’” said Figgs. “I started digging and found out a lot of things I didn’t want to know.”
On Oct. 3, 1849 — after about a week of bouncing from Richmond to Baltimore to Philadelphia and back to Baltimore instead of getting to New York as intended — Poe was found unconscious and wearing someone else’s clothes near the intersection of Albemarle and Lombard streets near the edge of what is now Little Italy.
He died of complications from exposure on Oct. 7 at a hospital most Baltimoreans know as Church Home, formerly at North Broadway at Fayette Street.
Figgs contends that Poe — an erratic soul already sick with the remnants of cholera and possibly suffering a brain tumor — was gotten drunk by men in the employ of his enemies and left outside to die.
“Because of the cholera, his doctor told him to take it easy. He said he was just going across the street to a restaurant. He even took the doctor’s cane with him, which he would have brought back,” he said.
“Two men joined Poe, and there were many plates of oysters and lots of drinks. One of the waiters said the men ‘took Mr. Poe out of here.’ He never came back. …”
The villain of the story is a known forger named Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Figgs contends that Griswold — a minor, self-important writer who hated Poe because Edgar eviscerated his work in print — was behind the collaring of Poe.
After Poe’s death, Griswold spread the first of many libels: The caricature of a drunken madman and dope fiend that clings to the writer to this day. In that pre-copyright era, Griswold also became Poe’s literary executor after the writer’s death.
“Poe was beginning to make a real name for himself — both Baudelaire and Dickens championed him,” said Figgs.
Asked if mainstream scholars had accepted his findings, Figgs said that Jeff Jerome — Charm City’s heavyweight Poe champion due to defend the Bard’s rightful resting place — was holding out for proof.
“I’m not ready to show my research to him,” said Figgs, standing at the spot behind the church hall where he believes Poe is buried.
“It’s just as well, because right now I can’t even find it.”
