Text: J. E. R, “Poe in Ann Street,” The Sun (New York, NY), vol. LXXXVI, no. 344, August 10, 1919, p. 12, col. 5

[page 12, column 5:]

POE IN ANN STREET.

Was He in a Boarding House or Sandy Walsh's Beer Cellar!

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN — Sir: You print a letter from G. George Werner stating that an autograph letter in his possession records that its writer, one Charles C. Curtis, boarded in 1844 with a Mrs. Foster at 4 Ann street and that Edgar Allan Poe was Mr. Curtis's “roommate and companion” and that at this same house General Tom Thumb was also a boarder.

Other things being equal, this has whiff of plausibility, seeing that Barnum's Museum was at the corner of Ann street and Broadway and that Barnum was the exploiter of General Tom Thumb. But other things are by no means equal. As THE SUN remarks in a headline to the letter, Tom Thumb was only six 1 years old in 1844.

It will be a great piece of evidence, and I am sure that the New York Shakespeare Society, which is engaged in tracing Poe's homes in this city, will eagerly await it, if Mr. Werner will give us a copy of this Curtis letter. Besides THE SUN's shrewd comment, many other things seem both to confuse and to render impossible the Ann street Mrs. Foster proposition.

The records of the Shakespeare Society show that Poe came to New York at the suggestion of John P. Kennedy to try his fortune in January, 1837, and induced Mrs. Clem [[Clemm]] to open her boarding house at Carmine street. As to this we have the statement of William Gowans, the Nassau street bookseller, Who was a boarder with Poe there. But In April, 1837, being disappointed in his prospects, Poe went to Philadelphia, and New York saw him no more until, he and Virginia came to New York by boat from Perth Amboy and took their residence at 130 Greenwich street, and of this the record is the autograph letter of Poe himself to Mrs. Clem, dated 130 Greenwich street, April announcing their joint arrival there and its delightful surroundings.

If Mr. Werner's letter is genuine we are to assume that Poe left his child wife Virginia alone at the Greenwich street abode and went and resided as a bachelor with this Mr. at Mrs. Foster's boarding house, Ann street, which is next to impossible.

Whatever irregularities are chargeable to Poe “when he had the price,” which was seldom, living a double life was not one of them. And besides, it was from this 130 Greenwich street that he went to the Brennen mansion, where all records — and there are dozens of them, citing N. P. Willis, J. A. Colton, editor of American Whig Review, and many well known names — prove that “The Raven” was written, read first to Mrs. Mary Brennen and printed first by Colton and then by Willis — actually the reverse, since Willis printed it from Colton's advance sheets by permission February 8, 1845.

As a matter of fact the New York Shakespeare Society has a continuous record of Poe and his residences from the end of Greenwich his life street in house October, 1849, onward and to there is no room in that record for an Ann street residence unless Poe lived a double life, which he certainly did not.

But now comes the marvellous tale, quite too bizarre for notice unless authenticated, namely:

The late George Shea, Chief Justice of the Marine (now the City) Court, told Appleton Morgan and many others that Poe used to frequent Sandy Walsh's beer cellar in street, and that his, Judge Shea's, father, John Augustus Shea, also used to Poe there. And that Poe and his companions in that cellar. line by line and stanza by stanza, composed “The Raven.” And that Mr. John Augustus Shea carried the completed poem to Mr. Colton — and this story is also alluded to in Woodberry's “Life of Poe” without the obvious comment as to its improbability, Vol. II., page 114 (note). Now would it have been possible that “Poe at Sandy Walsh's place in Ann street” and “Poe as Mr. Curtis's roommate in the Mrs. Foster boarding house In Ann may have somehow got themselves mixed up in Mr. Curtis's nebulous memory?

Surely the reminiscences of Poe's “roommate and companion” would be a great literary find. And the entire Curtis letter now Mr. Werner's possession will be awaited breathlessly.

J. E. R

NEW YORK, August 9.