The Poe Museum, or the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, is located in the Shockoe Bottom neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia, United States, and is dedicated to American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Though Poe never lived in the building, it commemorates his time living in Richmond. The museum holds one of the world’s largest collections of original manuscripts, letters, first editions, memorabilia, and personal belongings. The museum also provides an overview of early 19th-century Richmond, where Poe lived and worked. The museum features the life and career of Poe by documenting his accomplishments with pictures, relics, and verses and focusing on his many years in Richmond.
Old Stone House
The Poe Museum is located at the “Old Stone House,” built circa 1740 and cited as the oldest original residential building in Richmond. It was built by Jacob Ege, who immigrated from Germany to Philadelphia in 1738 and came to the James River Settlements and Col. Wm. Byrd’s land grant (now known as Richmond) in the company of the family of his fiancée, Maria Dorothea Scheerer, whom he later married; the house was a “Home for the Bride.” (One of Jacob’s nephews, George Ege, was a U.S. House of Representatives member from Berks County, Pennsylvania.) Dendrochronology suggests that additional construction on the house occurred in 1754. Jacob Ege died in 1762. Samuel Ege, the son of Jacob and a Richmond flour inspector, owned the house in 1782 when it first appeared on a tax register.
In 1824, when the Marquis de Lafayette revisited Richmond, a volunteer company of young Richmonders, the Junior Morgan Riflemen, rode in procession along Lafayette’s carriage. One of the riflemen, the then 15-year-old Edgar Allan Poe, stood as an honor guard outside the Ege house as Lafayette visited its inhabitants. The house remained in possession of the Ege family until 1911. Bed Bug Exterminator Richmond
Exhibits
The Poe Museum’s three buildings contain exhibits focusing on different aspects of the author’s life and legacy. The Old Stone House parlor displays furniture from the homes where Edgar Poe and his sister Rosalie Mackenzie Poe lived. A piano that once belonged to Poe’s sister and Edgar’s childhood bed is particularly interesting in this room.
The Elizabeth Arnold Poe Memorial Building includes many first and early editions of Poe’s works, including an 1845 publication of “The Raven” and one of only 12 known existing copies of Poe’s first collection Tamerlane and Other Poems. Manuscripts and rare early daguerreotypes and portraits are also exhibited there.
The North Building is dedicated to exploring Poe’s mysterious death. Among the collections’ highlights are Poe’s vest, trunk, walking stick, and a lock of his hair. There are over 26 published theories on Poe’s death, but the museum postulates that the 19th-century practice of Cooping could have contributed to his death.
Address: 1914 E Main St, Richmond, VA
Check out other attractions like Hollywood Cemetery