Text: Anonymous, “Poe's Brain Petrified,” New York Herald (New York, NY), whole no. 15,418, November 8, 1875, p. 4, col. 2

[page 4, column 2, continued:]

Two very curious relics have recently been brought from Baltimore to this city and are likely to remain here in some collection. A gentleman from St. Louis, an admirer of Edgar A. Poe, while lately in Baltimore visited the graveyard where the poet rested so long before his bones were taken to be placed beneath a monument, and there had a curious interview with sexton who attended to the removal of the poet's body. The sexton said that when the grave opened the remains of Poe were found to consist of tolerably well preserved skeleton — that was all. The sexton lifted the head and referring to the matter said: brain rattled around inside just like a lump of mud, His idea was that the brain had dried and hardened in the skull. Over the grave of Poe stood a plain slab of sandstone bearing merely a number to distinguish the grave from others. This stone the St. Louis gentleman purchased from the sexton, and also a portion of one of the side boards of the poet's coffin. The wood appears to be walnut, and when the time in which the coffin was in the ground before the disinterment is considered remains in an excellent state of preservation. It is understood that the interesting relies will be presented to the Mercantile Library. They would certainly prove curious addition to the collection of that institution.