THe dead silcenced

THE DEAD SILENCED

Edgar Allan Poe

“Once upon a midnight dreary while pondering weak and weary” the strange and curious fashion in which the macabre writer had died was of utmost interest. The irony of his death being exactly like one of the man’s stories and his unusual and unknown demise has stumped historians and his fans for years, But do we finally have an answer to his perplexing question.

The year is eighteen forty nine September twenty seventh. The acclaimed poet had left his home in Richmond on his way to Philadelphia to edit poems for a small poet by the name of Marguerite St. Leon Loud then his plan was to go to New York where he had lived to retrieve his aunt then back to Richmond to marry his childhood lover Elmira Royster Shelton. However Poe’s travels would take a twisted turn. After leaving Richmond Poe would have gone missing for about a week before being seen in a tavern in Baltimore in a disoriented state. We go on to John Walker on October third of a stormy night while walking to Gunner’s hall’s for an election that had been in operation that day he came across a man in the gutter as Walker took a closer look he recognized that man as the storyteller and poet Edgar Allan poe John Walker had noticed that Poe had looked disheveled and discombobulated and has described him as looking like he was “in great distress”. Walker had written to a gentleman known as Joseph E. (Evans) Snodgrass a friend of the poet and writer bestowing worry about Poe’s condition saying he thinks he’s severely drunk. When Snodgrass had come to see him he was stunned by the way Edgar Allan had looked. Usually Poe had been well kept and well dressed but he was not in his own clothes and they had been mismatched Snodgrass had said “he had evidently been robbed of his [own] clothing or cheated in an exchange.” Assuming Poe had been intoxicated he sent him to Washington College Hospital where they sent him to a special room for people with an intoxicated related illness. Poe’s final Hours were amongst the worst; he was delirious and hallucinating and the night before his death his physician John J. Moran had declared that he repeatedly called out for someone named “Reynolds”. He was also very upset about a trunk he had lost and was found in the swan tavern in Richmond. After many gruelling days on October seventh 1849 he had passed his last words which were recorded by Dr Moran were “Lord help my poor soul.” So what happened to Poe there are many theories as to what happened in that week he had gone missing.

One of the main theories is that Poe was a victim of something called cooping. This is a type of voter fraud when a person is kidnapped and forced to vote multiple times. On election day this would make perfect sense and that poe was found with mismatched clothes. Victims of cooping would often be drugged and forced to put on disguises to put in multiple votes. This is not the only plausible theory though since poe was found in a drunken state.

Poe was thought to be in a drunken state as said by Walker and Snodgrass and was said to be going in and out of consciousness but this does not explain the mismatched clothes or why he was in this state all four days he was in the hospital this theory in my opinion is not that logical but there is another theory that i think is very plausible 

Poe was thought to have a brain tumor after his death twenty six years later his body was exhumed from his grave. His body was not in great shape and while moving it the apparatus fell apart while moving him. A worker did note that there was a strange feature on Poe’s skull it was a mass rolling around in it. He contacted a forensic pathologist that suggested that it was not his brain as that is the first thing to decompose but it could be a calcified brain tumor.

Edgar Allan Poe was one of the greatest writers and the fashion in which he died was like one of his great writings. To this day no one knows how he died and the circumstances leading up to his death and can only wonder what he did in that week. All medical records were lost. So what do you think?

Some other theories surrounding his death

  • Rabies
  • Murdered by his fiance’s brothers
  • Carbon monoxide poisoning 
  • The flu
  • Beating