Text: Robert G. Cabell, “Edgar A. Poe,” Greensborough Patriot (Greensborough, NC), vol. XI, no. 33, December 1, 1849, p. 2, col. 4

[page 2, column 4, continued:]

Edgar A. Poe. — In his boyhood, Mr. Poe was noted for feats of hardihood, strength, and activity, to an extent almost beyond the credible; and it is said that he looks back upon such achievements with greater pride than upon any subsequent mental triumphs. On one occasion. with a run of thirty yards, he leaped, on a dead level, the distance of twenty-one feet six inches — a feat never equalled within our knowledge. When about fifteen, he swam from Ludlam's warf [[Wharf]] on James river, at Richmond, to Warwick — a distance of seven miles and a half — in a hot June day — and against a tide running, probably, from two to three miles an hour. The impossibility of resting for a moment, under the circumstances, renders the feat Herculean, and one never approached by any properly authenticated feat of the kind.” The veracity of the statement made above (which is taken from a Memoir of Mr. Poe in the “Philadelphia Museum”) having been lately called into question by one or two Eastern journals, we think it no more then [[than]] justice to set the matter in its true light. The gentleman who signs the subjoined statement, and those referred to by him, are among the most distinguished in our State: — “I was one of several who witnessed the swimming feat above described. We accompanied Mr. Poe in boats. Messrs, Robert Stanard, John Lyle, (since dead) Robert Saunders, John Munford, I think, and one or two others, were also of the party. Mr. P. did not seem at all fatigued, and walked back to Richmond immediately after the feat was undertaken for a wager. — ROBERT G. CABELL, of Richmond.”