The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-11-11
LANDMARKS OF THE
JAMESTOWN SHOW
Edgar Allan Poe Lived Within
Sight of the Grounds
IN TIDEWAHR, VIRGINIA
Visitors to the Exposition Who Have
Literary Tastes Will Find Much
of Interest There-Life of
the Sombre Poet.
BY cHAs. FREDERIC sTANssuRY
From the Johnstown Magazine.

From the Johnstown Magazine
Those visitors to the jamestown Expo
sition who are snappers-up of unconsid-
cred trifies of literary lore will have
much of interest to engage their atten-
ton. Within the vicinage there have
lived number of men who bore names
eminent in American letters. Fortress
Monroe, which lies in Hampton Roads,
directly in front of the beautiful EXPOSE
ton grounds. was for more than a year
the home of that commanding, sombre
and isolated genius-Americas foremost
man of letters-Edgar Allan Poe.
Visitors from France and England,
where Poe is most highly appreciated,
will be especially interested. When they
come to consider Poe's life in Underwater,
Virginia, more seriously they will sfind
that the erratic and melancholy poet
probably wandered frequently over the
picturesque site of the exposition, with
its wooded dells and superb water view
musing and piecing together In the
haunted palace of his brain "Tamerlane'
.Al Aaraaf'' and those early poems which
were given to the world year or so
ter in Baltimore. Sewells Point, where
on the exposition is to be held, lies with
in sight of the fortress where Poe per-
formed his irksome and uncongenial mil
itary duty, and is just the spot that
would have been likely to attract him IN
his hours OF leisure. gfhatshe was often
in Norfolk, eight miles distant goes
without saying, and is well attested by
the evidence
There is no direct evidence available at
present that Poe was ever in the Dismal
Swamp, which lies within few miles OF
Norfolk, but as a student of the UnlVer-
sty of Virginia, resident of Richmond
Norfolk and Fortress Monroe, it is scarce
ly probable that the swamp escaped him.
1t is almost inconceivable that man OF
his Temperament could hover on the Dor
ders of that dread and mysterious morass
and not be lured into it. Further than
this there is the internal evidence that
lies in that weirdly beautiful piece of
melihuous mystery, "Ulalume.' 1t has al
ways seemed to the writer that in the
eternal fitness of things, Poe and not
Moore, should have written the epic OF
the Great Dismal Swamp 1t Is no dis
courtesy to the memory of the Irish poet
TO say that had Poe treated the subject
of 1.-THE Lake of the Dismal Swamp
Moore's ballad would have been surpassed
in the proportion of Hyperion to Satyr
and a great and gloomy classic added TO
the literature of the new world, ola-
Dune" suggests the great swamp under
certain conditions, idealized by the mar
vicious imagination of Poe. OF the mys-
terious blood-red lake that. lies in the
heart of it he might wen have written;
ut was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid-reglon OF Wier-
1t was down by the dark tarn of Auber,
In the ghoui-haunted woodland of Wier
The stupendous sadness of Poes life,
frightened only by fitful CLEANS of hap
piness in his boyhood, was doubtless ac-
centuated by prenatural influences In
1902 the lady who afterwards became his
mother an attractive and accomplished
actress, was married at Norfolk to C. ID.
Hopkins, an actor in her company, ana
the pair played in Norfolk that year
Daviu Poe, father of Edgar Allan, Joined
the company in 1904 and played with them
In Norfolk and elsewhere in Virginia. Mr..
Hopkins died in October, 1905, and within
a month David Poe married Mrs Hop
kins We find that they were playing in
Richmond, and probably in Norfolk IN
February 1906 remaining in Virginia UNI
I'll May, when they left for Boston. 1t
was there that Edgar Allan Poe was born.
on January 49, 1909, destined to live until
lS49, when like Chatterton, the marvellous
boy. he
Persisted in his prime"
Mother Died in Poverty.
In the winter of 1910 we find Mrs. Poe
q widow now for the second tme-acting
In Richmond and other parts of Virginia.
She continued to perform until within
few weeks of her death, which occurred
in Richmond on December s. 1911. She
a.. in the deepest poverty and distress,
leaving three small children, of whom
Edgar Allan was the second child-to
whose aid the other actors would I'M
doubtedly have come but for the awful
catastrophe which occurred on the Christ
mas night following, whereby the theatre
at Richmond was destroyed by fire amid
a scene of indescribable horror.
The theatre was the one in which Mrs.
Poe had played. 1t was situated on what
was known as Theatre Square, and has
been succeeded by the Monumental
church, built to commemorate the TRACE
dy. On the night in question the theatre
was filed with representatives of Vir-
ginia's most brilliant social political and
intellectual life. Two plays We're to be
enacted 1.-THE Father, or Family Feuds,"
to be followed by Raymond and Agnes"
While the second play was in progress,
amid the laughter and applause, arose the
cry of "Fire!' A part of the scenery had