Edgar Allan Poe Cottage facts for kids
Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, March 2007.
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| Location | 2640 Grand Concourse, Fordham, Bronx, NY, |
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| Type | Historic house museum |
| Architect | John Wheeler |
| Public transit access |
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Poe Cottage
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| Area | 3 acres (1.2 ha) |
| Built | 1812 |
| Architect | John Wheeler |
| NRHP reference No. | 80002588 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | August 19, 1980 |
The Edgar Allan Poe Cottage is the former home of famous American writer Edgar Allan Poe. It stands on Kingsbridge Road and the Grand Concourse in the Fordham area of the Bronx, New York. The cottage is now in the northern part of Poe Park, not far from its first location.
This historic house is part of the Historic House Trust. It is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Bronx County Historical Society has managed the cottage since 1975. Experts believe the house was built in 1797.
Contents
History of Poe's Home
Poe Family Life in the Cottage
Edgar Allan Poe, his wife Virginia Clemm, and her mother Maria moved into the cottage around May 1846. Before this, they lived for a short time in Turtle Bay, Manhattan. At that time, Fordham was a rural area and not yet part of the Bronx. It had only recently gotten a train connection to the city.
The cottage was small and simple. It had a sitting room and kitchen on the first floor. The second floor had a bedroom and Poe's study, but no heat. The family kept caged songbirds on the front porch. The home sat on about 2 acres of land. Poe paid either $5 rent each month or $100 per year. The owner, John Valentine, bought it for $1000 in March 1846.
The family seemed to enjoy their home, even though it was small and had few furnishings. One visitor said, "The cottage is very humble. You wouldn't have thought decent people could have lived in it. But there was an air of refinement about everything." A friend of Poe's later wrote, "The cottage had an air of taste and gentility... So neat, so poor, so unfurnished, and yet so charming a dwelling I never saw." Poe himself wrote to a friend, "The place is a beautiful one." Maria later said, "It was the sweetest little cottage imaginable. Oh, how supremely happy we were in our dear cottage home!" Poe's last short story, "Landor's Cottage," was probably inspired by this house.
In this home, Poe wrote his famous poems "Annabel Lee" and "Ulalume". His family cat would often sit on his shoulder while he wrote. He also published a series called "The Literati of New York City." These were discussions about other writers like Nathaniel Parker Willis and Margaret Fuller. His publisher said these writings would "raise some commotion in the literary emporium."
The Poe family became friends with their neighbors, including the Valentine family. Poe even helped with the baptism of a local boy named "Edgar Albert." Poe also became friendly with the teachers at St. John's College, which is now Fordham University. He found the Jesuit teachers to be "highly cultivated gentlemen and scholars." He said they "smoked, drank, and played cards like gentlemen, and never said a word about religion." The college's church bells inspired his poem "The Bells".
During their time in the cottage, Virginia, Poe's wife, was very ill with tuberculosis. A family friend, Mary Gove Nicholls, wrote that Virginia seemed to be "rapidly passing away." Virginia died in the cottage's first-floor bedroom on January 30, 1847. She was buried in the Valentine family's burial place. Poe died a couple of years later on October 7, 1849, in Baltimore. Maria, Poe's mother-in-law, did not hear of his death until October 9, after he was already buried. Soon after, she moved out of the cottage to live with family in Brooklyn.
Saving and Moving the Cottage
We are not sure what happened to the cottage right after the Poe family left. However, it was reported that an "old southern lady" lived there. In 1874, an article described a visit to the cottage and said it was "dreadfully out of repair." In 1889, the cottage was sold at an auction for $775 to William Fearing Gill. This was an early step in trying to save the house. The Parks Department thought it was too expensive to keep up.
In 1895, the New York Shakespeare Society bought the cottage. They promised to keep it looking just as it did when Poe lived there. However, people soon worried about moving the cottage. An article in 1896 asked, "Shall We Save the Poe Cottage at Fordham?" It urged the New York State Legislature to save the home. Many famous people, like Theodore Roosevelt and Rudyard Kipling, supported this idea.
In 1905, the state legislature approved $100,000 to restore the cottage and create a park for it. This happened after reports that the owners were not letting visitors see the cottage. Some people complained about the restoration and park. They felt the money could be better spent elsewhere. Others worried that moving the cottage would make it less authentic. The decision to move it was made in 1910. On November 13, 1913, the Poe Cottage in Poe Park was officially opened. It was placed at the corner of Kingsbridge Road and the Grand Concourse. In 1922, the New York Historical Society did more work to restore the cottage to its original look.
The Cottage Today
In 1962, Poe's Cottage was named a Bronx landmark. In 1966, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission recognized it as an official city landmark. In 1974, vandals attacked the cottage, as they had in the past. This led to more criticism about how the cottage was being managed.
Vandalism continued for a few years. However, it became less common by the end of the 1980s. This was partly because more people started living in the cottage as caretakers. In the late 1990s, a student studying languages lived in the basement and cared for the cottage.
In 2007, a plan for a new Visitors Center for the Cottage and Bronx Historical Society in Poe Park won an award. The center, designed by Toshiko Mori, opened in 2008. It was the first project completed under Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Design and Construction Excellence Initiative.
See also
- Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia
- Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore, Maryland
- Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City
- List of New York City Designated Landmarks in the Bronx
- National Register of Historic Places listings in the Bronx
