1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



35 



me, nis deatli was mysterious, and, al- 

 though he has been dead 45 years, ho re 

 mains a mystery still. Nine lives of the 

 poet have been written, but the time and 

 place of his birth have been differently 

 uaentioned by different biographers. The 

 place of his burial was long a disputed 

 point; the cause of his death and the cir- 

 oumstanccs attending it have not yet been 

 definitely settled. 



An old resident of San Francisco, for- 

 merly of Baltimore, gives what he says is a 

 true account of Poe's last days and death. 

 His story is: 



"1 was an Intimate associate of Edgar 

 Allan Poe for years. Much that has been 

 Baid and written about his death is false. 

 Hia habitual resort in Baltimore was the 

 Widow Meagher's, an oyster stand and 

 liquor bar dovvn on the wharf much fre- 

 quented by journalists. lb was a respecta- 

 ' ble place, where parties could enjoy a 

 game of cards or engage in social conver- 

 sation. 



"Poo was a sort of pet of the old wom- 

 an, and he had a favorite seat just be- 

 tiind the stand. He went by the name of 

 'The Bard,' and when parties came into 

 the place it was 'Bard, come up and take 

 a nip!' or 'Bard, come and take a hand in 

 tbia game. ' 



"It was in the Widow Meagher's little 

 ehop that Poe's attention was called to an 

 advertisement in a Philadelphia newspaper 

 of a prize for the best original story, and 

 It was there that he wrote his famous 

 story, 'The Gold Bug,' which carried off 

 the $100 prize. 'The Bard' had been shift- 

 ing for several years between Baltimore, 

 Philadelphia and New York. He had not 

 been in Baltimore for several months when 

 he turned up one evening at the Widow 

 Meagher's. I was there when he came in. 



"He privately told me that he had been 

 to Richmond and was on his way north 

 to get ready for his wedding. It was the 

 night before an election, and about 10 

 o'clock four of us, including Poe, started 

 tip town. We had not gone half a dozen 

 squares when we were nabbed by a gang 

 of men who were on the lookout for votors 

 to 'coop.' It was the practice in th(jse 

 days to seize men, v»'hethor drunk or sobc^r, 

 lock them up until the polls were optui, 

 then march them around to every precinct, 

 where they were made to vote the ticket 

 of the party that controlled the 'coop. ' Our 

 'coop' was in the rear of an engine house, 

 either on North or Calvert street. 



"It was part of the game to stupefy the 

 prisoners with drugged liquor. Well, the 

 next day we were voted at 31 differc nt 

 places and over and over again, it being 

 as much as a man's life was worth to ro 

 fuse. Poe was so badly drugged that after 

 he was carried on two or three different 



rounds the leader of the gang said that it 

 was no u:se to vgte a dead man any longer, 

 BO they shoved him into a cab and sent 

 him to a hospital to get him out of the 

 way. 



"The commonly accepted story that Poe 

 died from the effects of dissipation is all 

 bosh. It was nothing of the kind. He 

 died from laudanum or something of the 

 kind that was forced upon him in the 

 coupe. He was in a dying condition when 

 be was being taken around the city. The 

 story by Griswold of Poe having been on 

 a week's spree and being picked up on the 

 street is false I saw him shoved into the 

 oab myself, and he told me that be bad 

 just arrived in the city." 



The above account of Poe's last hours 

 agrees in several respects with the account 

 which the late Chief Justice Nellson Poe 

 gave to the present writer. 



The second burial of Edgar A. Poe took 

 place on Nov 17, 1875. The occasion was 

 Interesting and remarkable. An immense 

 assembly, representing the education and 

 culture of Baltimore, was drawn together 

 to do honor to an American poet whose 

 fame had gone abroad and whose genius 

 was a subject of native pride. The cere- 

 luonies took place in the large ball of the 

 Western Female high school, in West Fay- 

 ette street, adjoining Westminster church, 

 in the graveyard of which the body of the 

 poet had rested for 26 years without a 

 stone to show that it was the grave of the 

 most unique genius that America had 

 given to the world. — New York Herald. 



CHILDREN'S IDEAS OF DEATH. 



The Ineenuitj of Some of Oar Toons't^i'B 

 to Avoid the Inevitable. 



Like the beginning of life, its termina- 

 tion, death, is one of the recurring puzzles 

 of childhood, writes Professor Cully in 

 The Popular Science Monthly. This might 

 be illustrated from almost any autobio- 

 graphical reminiscences of childhood. 

 Here indeed the mystery is made the more 

 Impressive and recurrent to consciousness 

 by the element of dread. A little girl of 

 83^ years asked her mother to put a great 

 stone on her head, because she did not 

 want to die. She was asked how a stone 

 would prevent it and answered, with per- 

 fect childish logic, "Because I shall not 

 grow tall if you put a great stone on my 

 head, and people who grow tall get old 

 and then die. " 



Death seems to be thought of by the un- 

 sophisticated child as the body reduced to 

 a motionless state, devoid of breath and 

 unable any longer to feel or think. This 

 is the idea suggested by the sight of dead 

 animals, which but few children, however 

 closely shielded, can escajae. 



