“Even his death is mysterious, as he perished anonymously in Baltimore, a John Doe body in a place where he had no particular reason to be.” Poe did not die “anonymously” nor was he a “John Doe” body! Poe was traveling from Richmond to New York with stops in Baltimore and Philadelphia. Baltimore was a transfer point between the south and the north. No mystery why he stopped in Baltimore. He was going to transfer to a train to go north. Poe was recognized when he was sick and his family took care of him the best way they could under the circumstances. He died on October 7, 1849 in a hospital and was buried in his grandfather’s plot in the Old Western Burial Grounds along side his grandparents and his brother Henry. Jeff Jerome, curator emeritus, formerly with the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore.
“Even his death is mysterious, as he perished anonymously in Baltimore, a John Doe body in a place where he had no particular reason to be.” Poe did not die “anonymously” nor was he a “John Doe” body! Poe was traveling from Richmond to New York with stops in Baltimore and Philadelphia. Baltimore was a transfer point between the south and the north. No mystery why he stopped in Baltimore. He was going to transfer to a train to go north. Poe was recognized when he was sick and his family took care of him the best way they could under the circumstances. He died on October 7, 1849 in a hospital and was buried in his grandfather’s plot in the Old Western Burial Grounds along side his grandparents and his brother Henry. Jeff Jerome, curator emeritus, formerly with the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore.