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[page 4, column 2, continued:]
Edgar A. Poe at College.
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On Feb. 14, 1826, Edgar Allan Poe matriculated at the University of Virginia. He was a mere boy of 17 then. His stay was confined to a single year. He left before he was 18. How senseless and foolish are the stories which are told to this day describing the excesses and general dissolute habits of young Poe in his college days. It is enough to know that these stories have been thoroughly disproved by those who have examined the whole record of Poe's life impartially and critically, and that whenever some slight basis of fact is found it arises from a general jumbling of dates, of charging the boy of 17 with offenses committed by the man of 39.
Poe, being matriculated at college 88 years ago on Wednesday was assigned to Room 13 in the West Section. That the faculty was pleased to have so distinguished a student, the foster son of Mr. Allan, the wealthy Richmond merchant, is indicated by his room assignment, as No. 13 was one of the best rooms in the building. It was on the first floor and is to-day sufficiently large to serve as headquarters of the Raven Club of the University of Virginia, a club made up of those students who particularly affect admiration for Poe and mean to keep his name in memory.
Thomas Jefferson lived through the greater part of Poe's college career, — that is to say, until July 4, 1826. Mr. Jefferson had established the University of Virginia. And he was prouder of that act than of any other he performed, barring only his writing of the Declaration of Independence. These two acts were his title to fame, and he begged his descendants to put them on his tombstone. Never mind about the Presidency, said Mr. Jefferson to those who were with him in his last moments. What man has been President [[illegible]] other man will ever dispute as being the author of the Declaration or the Founder of the University of Virginia. Living so near to Thomas Jefferson, Edgar Allan Poe can have analyzed his greatness and [column 3:] studied his character carefully. But during his first long vacation Jefferson died. And Poe felt that he had now lost the Father of his University even as he had lost the father of his being years earlier. So the death of Jefferson rendered Poe a full orphan indeed.
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Notes:
In the absence of an original to evaluate, this text has been taken from a rather poor scan from microfilm, parts of which are illegible.
There is much exaggerated here in regard to how much Poe may have seen Jefferson while he was a student at the university. Poe was on the list of students to have had lunch with Jefferson, in November of 1826, had the former president lived until that date. Poe was also among the students from the university who attended Jefferson's funeral at Monticello. There can be little doubt that Poe was aware of the passing of Jefferson, and would have felt a connection as a fellow Virginian as well as a student at the university founded by him. There is, however, not a single mention of Jefferson in any of Poe's surviving letters or any of his writings to back up the observation. Although this short and inconsequential article is unsigned, one may presume that the author of it had some personal connection with the University of Virginia, and is reading into it many of his own feelings.
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[S:0 - UO, 1912] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - Edgar A. Poe at College (Anonymous, 1912)