Tag Archives: Edgar Allan Poe grave

Death’s Garden: Westminster Church

Poe RSK001

Poe’s monument, as photographed by R. Samuel Klatchko

by E. A. Black

I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and Edgar Allan Poe has always been my favorite writer. When I was 17 and a junior in high school back in the 1970s, my social studies teacher gave my class the assignment of writing about a famous American. I didn’t want to merely crack open a book and write an essay about Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abe Lincoln, or Ernest Hemingway. I craved adventure. Since I lived near Westminster Church in Baltimore, where Poe was buried, I figured why write a boring report when I could turn my essay into a huge research project, complete with actual visits to Poe’s grave?

My mother drove me to the Poe House on Amity Street, where we were given the grand tour. The house was tiny and crowded. I imagined Poe, his 14-year-old wife and cousin Virginia Clemm, and his aunt and mother-in-law Maria Clemm singing around the piano in the living room. He doted on Virginia and took care of her when she became sick with tuberculosis. The disease eventually killed her. Although it can’t be proven, the Poe Society alleges Poe wrote about a dozen stories and poems while he lived in the house, including MS Found In A Bottle, Berenice, and Morella.

After visiting the house, we went to Westminster Presbyterian Church and graveyard. I was blown away at how massive the site was. The church itself was built in the Gothic Revival style, full of nooks, crannies, and spooky airs. The brick building had a slanted A-frame roof that loomed over me. A tall tower with four spires sat in the center of the building in the front. Tall arched Gothic windows graced all sides of the church. It was a spectacular structure, especially to an impressionable 17-year-old like myself.

While many notable Baltimoreans were buried in Westminster Cemetery, including mayors, U. S. Representatives, military personnel from the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, and the son of Francis Scott Key (Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner), the only people who interested me were Poe and his wife. Poe’s monument, which is visible from the street, was massive. A bronze plaque with his facial image is on one side of the monument, along with his birth and death dates. He, his wife/cousin Virginia, and his aunt/mother-in-law are buried beneath it. I huddled around the grave with other guests on a cold fall Saturday afternoon. Jeff Jerome, the Poe House curator, told Poe’s story and the history of the grave.

Poe’s wife Virginia died in New York. Years later, when the cemetery she was buried in was destroyed, her remains were transferred from her resting space. According to legend, the sexton in the New York cemetery held Virginia’s bones on his shovel and was ready to toss them when Poe biographer William Gill claimed them. The story was that there was so little left of her body that her remains were placed in a box the size of a shoebox. Gill stored the box under his bed and later arranged for it to be sent to Baltimore. Her remains were buried with her husband’s on his birthday in 1885.

Original Poe RSK001

Poe’s monument, as photographed by R. Samuel Klatchko

The monument is one of two gravestones of his on the site. The original one stands towards the back of Westminster Hall, marked with an engraved raven. That’s where Poe was originally buried. It’s a family plot, where his grandfather and brother are also buried. In 1875, a local school teacher raised money for a classier monument for the writer, a “Pennies For Poe” project. The result is the massive monument I saw first – the one visible from the street. Once it was completed, Poe’s body was transferred. Because of that project, it’s customary for visitors to leave pennies on the monument. When I visited, I left a penny. Of course I did. I wanted to be a part of history.

The interior of Westminster Hall, where the catacombs were located, was dark, and creepy. It smelled of damp earth. Full of gravestones and burial vaults, it was rather smothering. I had to bend over a little when I walked. I imagined men and women buried alive in those depths, like what Poe had written in his Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Good thing I didn’t have claustrophobia. The further into the crypts I walked, the more intense was the feeling of desolation and death. If there was ever an appropriate place to bury Edgar Allan Poe, this was it.

For 75 years, a mysterious man known as the Poe Toaster would visit the large monument on Poe’s birthday (January 19) and leave roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac on the grave. Rumor stated that the tradition was handed down from the original Poe Toaster to his son. The curator of the Poe Museum allegedly knew the identity of the Poe Toaster, but never revealed who the man was. I’d heard that a small crowd would gather around Poe’s grave on his birthday, but when the Poe Toaster stopped by in the dead of night with his gifts, no one disturbed him. Sadly, I’ve never been to the cemetery on Poe’s birthday to witness this. The Poe Toaster stopped visiting in 2010. (Loren’s note:  a new Poe Toaster may have taken up the tradition.)

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Halloween was always a fun time at the Westminster Church cemetery. I went to the holiday festivities the year I wrote my social studies essay. The assistant curator of the Poe House, whose name I can’t recall, bore a rather striking resemblance to the writer. He dressed up in 19th-century garb, pretending to be Poe, and read from Poe’s classic The Black Cat. I was entranced, a teenager with a love for horror in her element.

If you aren’t familiar with the story, it’s about a man driven insane by his hatred for a black cat named Pluto. He kills the cat. One night when he was out drinking again, another black cat stumbled onto the scene. It looked remarkably like Pluto and his wife instantly took a liking to it. The man had been abusing her all along and his abuse escalated as the new cat made itself comfortable in their presence. Overcome by his loathing of the animal, he tried to kill it with an axe. When his wife tried to stop him, he buried the axe in her brain, killing her. He entombed her body in a space beneath the cellar wall. When the cops came around, he boasted about how well his house was built. He took them to the cellar and hit his cane against the wall in front of where he buried his wife. From behind the bricks came the sad and desperate sound of a cat mewling. When the police tore down the wall, they found the body of the man’s wife and the cat, disheveled but alive, on top of her head. The man had accidentally sealed the cat in the wall with his wife’s body. He was sent to jail and was hanged.

At the end of the assistant curator’s story, he pulled out a toy black cat and wrestled with it, complete with shrieking, startling everyone out of their wits. It was the best story reading I’d ever seen. It sure shook me up. I couldn’t stop laughing. I hadn’t had that much fun in years.

I’ve often driven past the church and caught glimpses of the Poe monument from the street. Although I have lived in New England for 20 years and I’ve seen many old and historic cemeteries, Westminster Church and Edgar Allan Poe’s grave remain the cemetery that made the biggest impression on me.

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elizabeth_blackE. A. Black has written dark fiction and horror for numerous publications including Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales Of Body Enhancements Gone Bad, Mirages: Tales From Authors Of The Macabre, Teeming Terrors, and Wicked Tales: The Journal Of The New England Horror Writers Vol. 3.

E. A. Black Amazon Author Page

E. A. Black blog and website

Elizabeth Black Facebook page

Elizabeth Black Twitter

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Death's Garden001About the Death’s Garden project:

For the next year, I’m planning to put a cemetery essay up every Friday. If there is a cemetery that has touched your life, I would love to hear from you, particularly if there is one you visited on vacation — or if you got married in one. The submissions guidelines are here.

Horror Writers on Cemetery Travel

I’ve been using this month’s Cemetery of the Week columns to explore the writers who have inspired me.  I thought it might be helpful if I gathered all the horror writers on Cemetery Travel together.

The master's headstone

The master’s headstone

Ray Bradbury, Westwood Village Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California
Seeing Stars says, “If you had to choose only one Hollywood cemetery to visit, Westwood Village Memorial Park would be your best bet.” In addition to all the movie stars, Westwood has its share of writers. Author of In Cold Blood Truman Capote’s ashes are in a niche facing the cemetery entrance. The ashes of Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, are in the Room of Prayer columbarium beyond Marilyn Monroe. Billy Wilder, screenwriter of Sunset Boulevard, has a headstone that reads, “I’m a writer, but then nobody’s perfect.” Near him lies Ray Bradbury, whose headstone remembers him as the author of Fahrenheit 451.

Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey

Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey. Vintage postcard.

Charles Dickens, Westminster Abbey, London, England
Westminster Abbey has served as the site of every British coronation since 1066. The tradition predates the modern Gothic building, begun by Henry III in 1245. The abbey is stuffed nearly to bursting with mortuary sculpture, which it is –unfortunately – forbidden to photograph. The abbey’s website says, “Taken as a whole, the tombs and memorials comprise the most significant single collection of monumental sculpture anywhere in the United Kingdom.” Charles Dickens — author of the most-filmed ghost story in the English language — was interred here against his will, rather than being allowed to be buried alongside his family in Highgate Cemetery.

Family grave in Zoshigaya

Family grave in Zoshigaya

Lafcadio Hearn, Zoshigaya Reien, Tokyo, Japan
In the last half of the 19th century, Harper’s Magazine sent Lafacadio Hearn to Japan. Although he soon parted ways with his editors, he loved the country and wrote book after book describing it to Western readers for the first time. While his tales drift in and out of fashion in the West, he is still revered in Japan. His most famous work is Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, a collection of Japanese ghost tales comparable to the work of the Brothers Grimm. Those stories inspired Akira Kurosawa’s 1964 movie of the same name, which won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film. Hearn is buried under his Japanese name, Koizumi Yakumo.

Washington Irving's grave in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

Washington Irving’s grave in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

Washington Irving, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Tarrytown, New York
Walking up the hill from the parking lot between the Old Dutch Church and the Pocantico River, you’ll find the author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Just shy of the crest of the hill, Washington Irving rests inside a simple iron gate emblazoned with his family name. A plain marble tablet, streaked green with lichen, marks his grave. According to a bronze plaque placed in 1972 by remaining members of the Irving family, the “graveplot” is now a national historic landmark.

Kafka's grave

Kafka’s grave

Franz Kafka, the New Jewish Cemetery, Prague, the Czech Republic
The most famous of the New Jewish Cemetery’s denizens is easy to find, thanks to good signage. Franz Kafka’s monument is a top-heavy six-sided obelisk made of pink-and-gray granite. He died in 1924 of tuberculosis, in agony from his hemorrhaging lungs. All of his novels remained incomplete and unpublished at the time of his death, so only a few friends mourned him. The Cadogan City Guide to Prague forewarned us that Kafka shared his grave with his mother and hated father. In fact, he predeceased them both. He’s commemorated as Dr. Franz Kafka, in deference to his law degree. An inscription on a marble plaque at the base of the monument remembered his three sisters, who vanished into the Nazi death camps.

The graves at Jack London State Historic Park

The graves at Jack London State Historic Park

Jack London, Jack London State Historic Park, Glen Ellen, California
Jack London was among the most widely read authors of his time. His short story “To Build a Fire” has scarred schoolchildren for almost a century. Four days after his death on November 22, 1916, Charmian London placed her husband’s ashes on a small rise behind the ruin of the house they had been building together. The grave was marked only with a large lava rock from the Wolf House ruin. The boulder is strangely shaped: a weird, worn, organic form for a rock. Moss covers it like velvet, softening its broken edges.

H. P. Lovecraft's tombstone

H. P. Lovecraft’s tombstone

H. P. Lovecraft, Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island Swan Point’s most famous permanent resident is Howard Pillips Lovecraft. A n obelisk that says Phillips marks the plot belonging to Lovecraft’s grandparents. The back of it holds Lovecraft’s parents’ name and dates. At the bottom, he is remembered as Howard P. Lovecraft, “Their Son.” A smaller stone purchased by Dirk W. Mosig — at that time, the leading authority on Lovecraft — was unveiled during a small ceremony in 1977. The low granite marker spells out Howard Phillips Lovecraft, August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1938, with added the epitaph, “I am Providence.” Those words came from a letter Lovecraft wrote to his Aunt Lillian, eventually published in 2000 in Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters, edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz.

Poe's monument, as photographed by R. Samuel Klatchko

Poe’s monument, as photographed by R. Samuel Klatchko

Edgar Allan Poe, Westminster Hall Burying Ground, Baltimore, Maryland
Westminster Hall’s best-loved resident lies just inside the gates. A large monument marks the grave of Edgar Allan Poe, his wife Virginia, and her mother Maria Clemm. Poe was originally buried in 1849 the plot of his grandfather David Poe, elsewhere in the churchyard. His unkempt grave went unmarked for decades, despite several attempts to provide a suitable monument. Eventually, he was moved to this more prominent plot when his mother-in-law died in November 1875 . It took 10 years before his wife was exhumed from her grave in New York and reburied in Baltimore beside him. The Annual Halloween Tour of Westminster Hall & Burying Grounds is scheduled for Thursday, October 31, 2013, at 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Vintage postcard of Stevenson's grave

Vintage postcard of Stevenson’s grave

Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima, Upolu, Samoa
In December 1894, when Stevenson died of apoplexy (a brain hemorrhage or stroke). He was 44. Local Samoans built him a hardwood coffin and stood guard over his body through the night. The following day, they cut a road through the jungle to the grave, which they called the “Road of Loving Hearts.” Working in relays, they carried the coffin to the grave. Stevenson was buried just below the 1560-foot summit of Mount Vaea in a tomb overlooking his family estate, Vailima, and the ocean.

Bram Stoker's urn at Golder's Green Columbarium. Photo by Carole Tyrrell.

Bram Stoker’s urn at Golder’s Green Columbarium. Photo by Carole Tyrrell.

Bram Stoker, Golders Green Crematorium, London, England
One of the oldest crematories in England and the oldest in London, Golders Green may also be the best-known crematorium in the world. Over the years, many famous people have chosen to be cremated there. Some remain there in urns in the columbarium or beneath rosebushes in the garden. The redbrick crematorium was built in an Italianate style with a large tower that hides its chimney. It was built in stages as money became available. The current crematorium was completed in 1939. Its three columbaria contain the ashes of thousands of Londoners. London’s Cemeteries says Golders Green is “the place to go for after-life star-spotting.” My hero Bram Stoker is in one of the columbaria, which can be visited with a guide.

Impressions of Graveyards in Maryland, Virginia, and DC

The Chesapeake Book of the Dead: Tombstones, Epitaphs, Histories, Reflections, and Oddments of the RegionThe Chesapeake Book of the Dead: Tombstones, Epitaphs, Histories, Reflections, and Oddments of the Region by Helen Chappell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a very strange book, more a collection of ghost stories than essays about cemeteries. The author was inspired by the legendary Wisconsin Death Trip, but instead of collecting news stories, historical photos, and real-world evidence of how things were, she collects urban legends and tales of hauntings, reproducing some in dialect that mimics oral accounts without actually being quoted. Woven around those stories are her memories of growing up in an abandoned graveyard near her father’s farm and her visits to graveyards as an adult. Obviously, I like those parts of the book better than the folklore.

And it’s not that I don’t like folklore. It’s just that I wish it acted more like nonfiction here, without real people telling the stories or at least the author really responding to hearing or reading them. Instead, it feels like chunks of fiction are dropped in amongst the thoughtful essays. In fact, I’m deeply interested in her justifications of visiting cemeteries as she tangentially faces the oncoming reality of death, and her delicious, good-natured morbid curiosity. I wish there was lots more of that.

The photos by Starke Jett V don’t often rise to the level of the cover photo, with its plundered grave and jauntily tilted skull. Still, they do become art from time to time: the crow captured as it alights on a weathered stone, the naked toddler on the Clover Addams monument in Rock Creek Cemetery. They don’t detract from the text but they don’t exactly illustrate it, either.

I wish there was an index, to make the book more useful as of a research text, but I realize my uses probably differ from most people’s.  We all might benefit from an explanation of what she considers the Chesapeake area, though. I had to google it.

You can get your own copy of the book for a reasonable price on Amazon.

View all my reviews on Goodreads.

Cemetery of the Week #111: Westminster Hall Burying Ground

Poe's Grave as photographed by Mason Jones

Poe’s Grave as photographed by Mason Jones

Westminster Hall Burying Ground
Also known as Westminster Presbyterian Churchyard
519 West Fayette Street at Green Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
Telephone: (410) 706-2072
Tours: (410) 706-4128
Founded: 1786
Last burial: 1943
Size: 180 burial plots
Open: 8 a.m. to dusk.

This land originally belonged to John Eager Howard, a three-term governor of Maryland, who deeded the plot to the First Presbyterian Church in the 1780s. A city ordinance in 1849 banished graveyards from inside the Baltimore city limits, but this burial ground squeaked by because it was attached to a church.

Which is a story in itself: most churchyards are built around an existing church. In this case, the burial ground was established first, on the edge of Baltimore. As the city grew out to surround it, the Presbyterians built a church in the 1840s. Rather than disturb the old graves below, the church was built on piers that raised it above them. Eventually the piers were enclosed, creating catacombs that can be toured by appointment.

Famous and Curious Cemeteries calls Westminster “one of the most historic and Gothic churchyards in Baltimore,” without establishing if the field of similar churchyards is crowded. Among its attractions are the Egyptian Revival tombs at the rear of the church.

Poe's monument, as photographed by R. Samuel Klatchko

Poe’s monument, as photographed by R. Samuel Klatchko

Its best-loved resident lies just inside the gates. A large monument marks the grave of Edgar Allan Poe, his wife Virginia, and her mother Maria Clemm. When Famous and Curious Cemeteries was written, six small square markers, each adorned with the letter P, identified the boundaries of the Poe family plot. I don’t know if those are still in place, but the cemetery was badly vandalized before the University of Maryland stepped in and took over its upkeep.

Poe was originally buried in 1849 the plot of his grandfather David Poe, elsewhere in the churchyard. His unkempt grave went unmarked for decades, despite several attempts to provide a suitable monument. Eventually, he was moved in November 1875 to this more prominent plot when his mother-in-law died. It took 10 years before his wife was exhumed from her grave in New York and reburied in Baltimore beside him.

A small marble stone was created to mark Poe’s original grave. It was placed outside the Poe family lot, but later moved to the correct spot.

The stone marking Poe's original grave, photographed by R. Samuel Klatchko

The stone marking Poe’s original grave, photographed by R. Samuel Klatchko

For decades on Poe’s birthday in January, a mysterious black-clad figure would toast Poe’s grave with a bottle of cognac and leave a bouquet of roses. A Grave Interest, one of my favorite blogs, has a great post about the Poe Toaster.

Also buried in the churchyard are one signer of the Constitution and 18 generals of the Revolution and War of 1812.

According to The Chesapeake Book of the Dead, the catacombs under the red-brick church are haunted by Frank, the ghost of a body snatcher, who once plundered these graves to supply Johns Hopkins University with cadavers for dissection.

The church ceased to be used as a church in the late 1970s. Now it can be rented for weddings and other occassions.

Completely by accident, this post commemorates the anniversary of Poe’s death on October 7, 1849. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come soon enough to tell you about the annual celebration of Poe’s death, which was held last Sunday, October 6, 2013. You still have time, however, for this:

Annual Halloween Tour of Westminster Hall & Burying Grounds
Thursday, October 31, 2013, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
$5 for adults, $3 for children under 12. No reservations required.
Come celebrate Halloween with Westminster Hall’s Annual Halloween Tour, a Baltimore tradition for over 30 years! Tour Westminster Hall, its catacombs, and the burying ground. Eerie music will be performed by Count Dracula on the Opus 577, the fully restored 1882 organ. Gripping readings and performances of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart” and “TheMasque of the Red Death.” Contact Mary Jo Rodney (mrodney@law.umaryland.edu) for more details.

Useful links:

The Poe Society’s page on Poe’s grave

The Westminster Hall homepage

Some pictures of the churchyard and a map

The Poe Museum’s Facebook page

Ghost tours of Baltimore

GPS information from CemeteryRegistry.us

Books on Cemetery Travel that reference Westminster or Poe:

Tombstones: 75 Famous People and Their Final Resting Places by Gregg Felsen

Famous and Curious Cemeteries

The Chesapeake Book of the Dead: Tombstones, Epitaphs, Histories, Reflections, and Oddments of the Region by Helen Chappell

A grave I haven’t visited

Harry Clarke's illustration for "Bereneice" from the 1919 edition of Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Harry Clarke’s illustration for “Berenice” from the 1919 edition of Tales of Mystery and Imagination

I’ve never been to the grave of Edgar Allan Poe, which strikes me as a tragedy. Poe was a huge influence on me. (No surprise, is it?)  I date my love of cemeteries back to his tales of premature burial and the poem Annabel Lee.

I discovered his stories at the library the year my parents took us on an epic driving tour of the West. I remember reading a borrowed copy of Tales of Mystery and Imagination in the truck camper while it was parked outside the Denver Mint.  We were waiting for the tour to begin, so I was killing time sounding out words like sepulchre.

My mom encouraged my fascination with Poe.  On another vacation, we visited the room set aside for a shrine at the University of Virginia.  Poe hadn’t been a student there long before he was thrown out for gambling debts — but he was a student who became famous, so they celebrate him.

We also visited the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia. I don’t remember much about it, other than the tropically lush garden around the too-tall brick house.  There were manuscripts and photographs and a stuffed raven perched on the bust of Athena over the door. I would love to go back.

I always believed that my family made the journey over the border into Maryland, but my mom says that while they talked about it, Poe’s grave was out of the way. We headed off to see the graves of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson instead.

So while I’ve never stood at Poe’s grave myself, all my friends who have ever found themselves in Baltimore have visited him on my behalf.  I’ll include their photos as I feature the Westminster Hall Burying Ground tomorrow.

Maybe I can encourage one of them to relate his adventures, too.