Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum
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Edgar Allan Poe House
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Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore, Maryland
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| Location | Baltimore, Maryland |
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| Coordinates | 39°17′28.65″N 76°37′59.30″W / 39.2912917°N 76.6331389°WCoordinates: 39°17′28.65″N 76°37′59.30″W / 39.2912917°N 76.6331389°W |
| Built | 1830 |
| NRHP Reference # | 71001043 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | November 11, 1972 |
| Designated NHL | November 11, 1972 |
The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, located at 203 North Amity St. in Baltimore, Maryland, is the former home of American writer Edgar Allan Poe in the 1830s. The small unassuming structure, which was opened as a writer's house museum since 1949, is a typical row home. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1972.
Due to a loss of funding by the city of Baltimore, the Museum closed to the public in October 2012. Poe Baltimore, the Museum's new governing body, reopened the Museum to the public on October 5, 2013.
The brick home, then numbered 3 Amity St., and now numbered 203 North Amity Street, is assumed to have been built in 1830 and rented by Poe's aunt Maria Clemm in 1832. Clemm was joined in the home with her ailing mother, Elizabeth Cairnes Poe, and her daughter Virginia Clemm. Edgar Allan Poe moved in with the family in 1833 around the age of 23, after leaving West Point. Virginia was 10 years old at the time; Poe would marry her three years later, though their only public ceremony was in 1836. Poe lived in the house from about 1833 to 1835.
The house was rented using pension money that Elizabeth collected thanks to her husband, David Poe Sr., who was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War. The home is small and Poe's room on the top floor has a ceiling with a sharp pitch which is six feet high at its tallest point.
In the 1930s, homes in the area, including Poe's, were set for demolition to make room for the "Poe Homes" public housing project. The house was spared and control was given to the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, which opened the home as The Baltimore Poe House in 1949. Former displays in the Museum included a lock of Poe's hair, a small piece of Poe's coffin, some original china that once belonged to John Allan (Poe's guardian after Eliza Poe's death), and a large reproduction of the portrait of Virginia Clemm painted after her death as well as many other Poe-related images. An original 1849 obituary by Rufus Griswold in the October 24, 1849 edition of the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper is also on display along with a reprint of Poe's original announcement for the creation of a new literary magazine to be called The Stylus — an endeavor that never came to fruition.
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