Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and lived in six Eastern cities. His father was David Poe, a Baltimore actor. His mother, Elizabeth, also in the acting business came to the United States as a kid. The parents were not that talented; they played small roles in rather third-rate theatrical companies. They both had small parts, and barely managed to make a living.

Edgar was the second of three children. When the third child was born, the father died, or disappeared, and Mrs. Poe went to Richmond with the two youngest children. The oldest boy, William Henry, had already been left with relatives in Baltimore. Mrs. Poe was in the last stages of tuberculosis. Weakened by the disease and worn out with the struggle to support her children, she died. Edgar, two years old, and the infant, Rosalie, were left as orphans.

It was pure luck that Mrs. Frances Allan, the wife of a merchant in Richmond learned about the Poe babies. She had no children of her own and liked handsome little Edgar a lot more than his sister. She took him home with her, and another family took his little sister Rosalie.

Mrs. Allan would have liked to adopt Edgar, but her husband was unwilling to commit himself. At that time people thought acting was immoral. John Allan could not help regarding the little son of actor parents as a questionable person to inherit his name and the fortune he was busy accumulating. He was willing however, to support the child, and in time came to be proud of Edgar's good looks and intelligence.

When Edgar was six years old, Mr. Allen's business took him to Scotland, the country from which he had come originally. The family stayed in Scotland and England for five years.

Edgar was eleven when the Allans returned to Richmond. Richmond in back then in the 1820's was a good place for a boy to live. It was still a small enough town for the fields, swamps, and woods to be close by. Boys swam in the river and in the little creeks, they fished, they tramped through the thick woods, looking for wild muscadines and chinquapins.