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This lithograph of the
Washington University Hospital of Baltimore shows
the building as it appeared in 1859. Based on information provided by
Poe's
attending physician, Dr. John J. Moran, the room in which Poe died was
in the tower on the far left, on the second floor, above and to the
left
of the roof to the porch. There is some debate as to whether or not
this
is the correct location.
A large stairway, apparently
dating before 1855, currently
occupies
that tower and may have been there even in Poe's day. Nonetheless, a
bronze
plaque marks the purported site of the room: "Here before alterations
was
the room in which Edgar Allan Poe died, October 7, 1849."
Another plaque, in the lobby, was
donated in 1909 by Mrs.
Thomas S.
Cullen. It reads: "To the Memory of Edgar Allan Poe who spent his last
days in this House." (At least one tradition holds that the attending
physician
was not Dr. Moran but Dr. William M. Cullen. Mrs. Cullen was presumably
a relative.)
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