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[page 1, column 6, continued:]
POE'S WIFE. — We find the following in our New York exchanges:
“Considerable surprise is expressed by many citizens of Fordham, New York, that the committee having the matter of erecting a monument over the remains of the poet Edgar A. Poe and his mother-in-law. Mrs.Clemm, have not taken measures to place the remains of Mrs. Poe by the side of her husband and mother. Mrs. Poe died at Fordham. in the house in which Poe wrote and her remains were placed in the old family vault of the Valentines, in the Reformed Church at Fordham.”
The mistake in the above is in the supposition that there was a purpose here in Baltimore, where the remains of Poe are buried, to erect a monument to other than Poe himself. The incidental fact that the remains of Mrs Clemm lie near by in the same churchyard doubtless leads to this misapprehension. It would be a very fitting thing, however, that the remains of the poet's faithful wife should lie by his side in the shadow of this monument to his genius, and it would be a very graceful act on the part of the Fordham people were they to take such steps as would effect that result.
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Notes:
This article is the earliest example of an idea that would eventually be achieved a decade later. Here, it is summarily dismissed, but it does raise questions about claims made by W. F. Gill that the relocation of her remains was driven by development of the cemetery in Fordham.
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[S:0 - BS, 1875] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - Poe's Wife (Anonymous, 1875)