Happy Birthday to Us!

It's our birthday! 

To read about the founding of the organization, the first meeting of which was in June 1799, and the 101 founders, please click here. 

Edgar Allan Poe's Birthday

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston. After a peripatetic life, he eventually landed in Baltimore, where he died in October of 1849. His death has been attributed to alcoholism, substance abuse or suicide, but our friends at the University of Maryland's Historic Clinico-Pathologic Conference conducted a deep review and suggested that he actually died of rabies.

After being found on the streets of Baltimore, Poe was taken to the historic Church Home Hospital, which although still standing, is no longer a functioning hospital. At the time of Poe's death, Church Home was the hospital of the Washington Medical College. The physician who attended Poe in his final days was Faculty Member, John Joseph Moran. 

Poe's funeral was very short and very simple, with his uncle providing a coffin, and Dr. Moran's wife sewing his shroud. The Reverend W.T.D. Clemm, a cousin of Poe's late wife Virginia, presided. Poe was buried in the Westminster Burying Ground (directly adjacent to the University of Maryland Medical School). His original grave was towards the back of the graveyard, but the gravestone was eventually moved to the front because it became a tourist attraction. 

In 2009, a group of Poe groupies conducted a funeral fit for the man.

Actors portrayed contemporaries of Poe's and a horse-drawn caisson would through the streets of Baltimore from Poe's House to the burying ground. Here is a little video I took of the event.