Edgar Allan Poe passed from this world.

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1849
June 30 - Poe leaves NYC and visits John Sartain in Philadelphia.


July 13 - Poe goes to Richmond and stays at the Swan Tavern Hotel.
Poe joins the "Sons of Temperance" in an effort to stop drinking.
Poe lectures on "The Poetic Principle".


Sept 27 - Poe leaves Richmond and goes back to Philadelphia.


Sept 30 - Poe apparently gets on the wrong train and goes to Baltimore.


Oct 3 - Poe is found half conscious and is taken to a hospital.


Edgar Allan Poe dies on October 7, 1849.


"Death of Edgar A. Poe.


EDGAR ALLAN POE is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. The poet was well known, personally or by reputation, in all this country; he had readers in England, and in several of the states of Continental Europe; but he had few or no friends; and the regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in him literary art has lost one of its most brilliant but erratic stars."


R. W. Griswold - New-York Daily Tribune - October 9, 1849

On October 3, 1849, Poe was sent in a carriage to the Washington University Hospital of Baltimore (more widely known under its later incarnations as Church Home or Church Hospital). Some sources note the name of the institution as the Washington College Hospital, but the designation of University was apparently adopted in 1839. City directories from 1847-1848 and 1849-1850 confirm this somewhat more prestigious title. John J. Moran gives the name as both the Washington University Hospital and the Washington College University Hospital.


The exact details of Poe’s condition and treatment here are left to us only in the writings of his attending physician, Dr. John J. Moran. Unfortunately, Dr. Moran (who seems to have given up medicine after 1851 and was briefly the mayor of Falls Church, Virginia), appears to have made quite a career from 1875 until his own death in 1888 lecturing on Poe’s final days, the story growing more elaborate and intriguing with each telling. Thus, what should be the best source is actually one of the least reliable. Poe’s cousin, Neilson Poe, tried to visit on October 6 but was told that Edgar was too excitable and left without seeing him. Since Moran’s testimony is all we have, therefore, we must be satisfied with it. With that caveat, the following information is an attempt to provide a relatively cohesive summary, based on Moran’s various and often contradictory accounts.


Poe was taken to a room in one of the towers, where persons ill from drinking were usually put to avoid disturbing the other patients. Moran quickly decided, however, that Poe was not drunk and indeed had not been drinking. Since Poe’s clothing had been taken and replaced with something much more worn and garish, Moran suspected that Poe may have been robbed and mugged. Poe came in and out of consciousness, at one point refusing a glass of brandy offered as a stimulant. Moran then has Poe giving a number of absurdly flowery speeches, including “Language cannot tell the gushing well that swells, sways and sweeps, tempest-like, over me, signaling the ‘larm of death’.” Asked about his friends, Poe supposedly replied that “My best friend would be the man who gave me a pistol that I might blow out my brains.” By one of Moran’s descriptions, Poe called out the name of “Reynolds” (who has never satisfactorily been identified). At around 5:00 in the morning of Sunday, October 7, Poe died. His last words may have been “Lord, help my poor soul.”