POE 



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POE 



headquarters of the Oregon Short Line, a road 

 employing 2,300 men in Pocatcllo in yards and 

 machine shops. Features of note are the Idaho 

 Technical College, the Federal building, com- 

 pleted in 1915 at a cost of $125,000, Short Line 

 Station, Y. M. C. A. building, Elks' Club, Car- 

 negie Library and two hospitals. Pocatello is a 

 wholesale distributing point, has a large meat- 

 packing plant and is the commercial center of 

 a large agricultural and stock-raising country. 

 In 1910 the population was 9,110; it was 12,293 

 in 1916 (Federal estimate). The area is about 

 three square miles. 



POE, po, EDGAR* ALLAN (1809-1849), an Ameri- 

 can poet and story- writer, was born in Boston 

 on January 19, 1809. His grandfather was a 

 revolutionary officer of an honored Baltimore 

 family ; and his parents were respectable actors. 

 Left an orphan 

 at two years of 

 age, Poe was 

 adopted by Mr. 

 Allan, a wealthy 

 merchant of Rich- 

 mond, Va. His 

 education con- 

 sisted of five years 

 in an English 

 school, several 

 years in a Rich- 

 mond academy, 

 and one session 

 at the Univer- 



sitv nf Vircri'nio cangng scenes, an was 

 sity 01 Virginia, overshadowed by constant re- 

 from which Mr. verses and ill fortune, brought 

 ' about by his own faults of 

 Allan removed character. His literary ca- 

 him Tu-nhnhN/Kc, reer was distinguished, and 

 him, probably be- refl ected almost unapproach- 

 cause of extrava- able genius. 

 gant losses at gambling. He entered a count- 

 ingroom, but soon quarreled with his foster- 

 father and left home. In 1827 he reappeared 

 in Boston, published his first volume of poems, 

 and, desperate for money, finally enlisted in the 

 regular army. After serving two years at Fort 

 Moultrie and Fortress Monroe he was honor- 

 ably discharged through the interventions of ^ 

 Mr. Allan, who also obtained his entrance to 

 West Point. Poe's deliberate unruliness there, 

 followed by court-martial and dismissal within 

 six months, turned his adopted parent against 

 him completely. In his school life Poe left a 

 record of wide reading and of brilliance in lan- 

 guages, mathematics and athletics, but not of 

 steady effort or good-fellowship. 



A Meteoric Career. He was now on his own 

 resources. In 1833, while living with his aunt. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 

 His life was crowded with 

 changing scenes, and was 



he won a one-hundred-dollar prize for the tale 

 A Manuscript Found in a Bottle. This success 

 brought him friends, and soon after his mar- 

 riage with his young cousin, led to his connec- 

 tion with a Richmond periodical. Within a 

 year, by his tales, poems and literary reviews, 



WHERE "THE RAVEN" WAS WRITTEN 

 This "Poe Cottage," in Fordham, near New 

 York City, has been moved from its original lo- 

 cation, shown above, to a small park, where it 

 is preserved as a Poe memorial. 



he increased the circulation of the magazine 

 sevenfold. He worked tirelessly, and made this 

 the most pleasant and fruitful period of his 

 life. Soon he was set adrift, however, to serve 

 briefly but brilliantly with The Gentleman's 

 Magazine, Graham's Magazine, and several oth- 

 ers, but always with the same result dismissal 

 for unjust criticisms in his articles or for irregu- 

 larity due to intemperance. The brightest part 

 of his life story is his love for his childwife, 

 but the strain caused by her long illness and 

 her death in 1847 prostrated Poe, who never 

 recovered his former vigor. Although never 

 dissipated for long periods, he drank more and 

 more frequently. Alcohol was always a mad- 

 dening poison to his system, and at length he 

 was found unconscious in Baltimore, where, on 

 October 7, 1849, he died from his excesses. 



Estimate of the Poet. Poe's great mind 

 was not balanced by a great character, and 

 every step in his life shows the tragedy of a 

 weak will. His work was of three kinds criti- 

 cal, poetical and narrative. His was the first 

 broad and really artistic criticism in America, 

 but although sometimes farseeing and stimu- 

 lating, it was fully as often woefully wrong. 

 His remarks on Longfellow were particularly 

 violent, but the older poet met them with uni- 

 form charity and was always unsparing in his 



