Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hello, hello. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Weird World Adventures, the podcast. I'm your host, Mallory.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: And I'm your host, Michael.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: And we're here to show you just how weird this world of ours really is.
And we're continuing today our countdown to the season two of Weird World Adventures on Amazon prime, which I am actively aggressively editing.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Aggressively.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Aggressively.
And, you know, one of the things that I really love about Weird World that I think is special and which I think kind of makes the episodes, is we interview so many people who are so passionate about the stuff that they do, and it could be bizarre, it could be something very strange, but they're so passionate about it.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: I agree.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: The Dino guy was so passionate about his art.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Makes it interesting. The girl at the Titanic Museum was all about Titanic.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Yeah. No one wants to sit through a lecture.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Right. You want to see people that are, like, really excited and celebrating their passion talk about it. To me, when it's the same thing when you watch a movie, if someone's checked out, you're not going to be into it, but if someone is really connected with and happy to be doing what they're doing, I feel like you feel that.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Now we can just get that intensity from the host, I guess. We'll have a great show.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Wow.
You know, it's funny, you can tell when I'm really tired in some of the takes when I'm editing it, because my responses just become, oh, wow. Like, so generic, and I'm like, oh, no. Mallory, what were you doing?
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Well, what you were doing was probably flying to the place, right? Overnight.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: And then showing up for the interview a few times. Just from the airport.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Like, getting off the plane. The next stop is the interview before.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Any kind of hotel, before anything else. Yep.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: I'll give you a break for that.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: All right. And the Salem one, I think I was pretty engaged the whole time, but I will say it snowed. And when I say it snowed, it. Blizzard. It had a blizzard in between us.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Being inside, outside, then inside, then back outside.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Yes.
It, like, lightly started to flurry just a tiny bit when we were at the Witch Memorial. And then we went to have dinner at the Hawthorne Hotel and we came out and there's just inches of snow on the ground. We're like, how long were we in here for?
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it was impressive.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: And then we're walking out through a blizzard afterwards.
That was pretty exciting. It was pretty exciting.
And the camera work, though.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: It was pristine.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: It is pretty pristine. It is pretty pristine.
But today's highlight, that we're going to.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Do nothing to do with what we just talked about.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Yes, well, it does have to do with Weird World, but nothing about Salem or Dinosaur Kingdom or any of the other ones.
It's another interview. This is why it came to mind where the person giving the interview was so passionate.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: We spoke with the director at the Poe Museum here in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond has also become strangely, like, bizarre and more celebratory of the weird stuff since I was here in college.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Kind of goth culture.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Yes, definitely.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: There's a hidden goth culture scene.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Yes. And everybody loves Poe.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Everybody loves Poe.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Everybody loves Poe.
And the Poe Museum is actually a pretty popular space and they do a lot of events there, which helps with that too.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: It's a popular space and it's just tucked in a corner of downtown Richmond.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: It's a tiny building just in an old, like, area.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: You wouldn't necessarily notice it.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Cause it's in an area that has similar old buildings and it's kind of old looking downtown Richmond and you could easily just pass it.
But you might be like, oh, it must be something historical. But you wouldn't necessarily know. There's not big gaudy flashing signs. But Poe's Museum.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Right, right.
And the director, his name was Chris, he dresses up like Poe on occasion and recites Poe's work. Exactly.
And when I got there, I'm like, oh, he's an interesting guy. And then he just starts talking and he was so weird and funny in a great way.
I'll never forget. He. So they have Edgar Allan Poe's childhood bed there.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: And he says, this is where little Eddie dreamed dreams no mortal ever dares to dream. And I'm like, oh, this is gonna be a great interview. Oh, yeah, he called him Eddie.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: And I was like, you are bullying. You're on a first name buddy base nickname basis with this guy.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: It was like the cameras weren't rolling and he's just shy, not saying anything. And then you turn it on, you start asking questions and he just lights up like, I've been ruining my whole life for this moment. It was so good.
And I'll also point out. So they have a coffin in one of the rooms. It's like standing against the wall for you to get in and take pictures and see how you fit in the coffin. Right?
[00:05:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Right. Just a normal thing to do.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: Yeah, you fit. Well, I know exactly kind of the dimensions to get now.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Oh, boy. Good to know. If you're planning something.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: It's just good to know.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Okay.
You never know with you anymore. I'm gonna sleep upstairs.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: Sleeping upstairs in Mallory's bed, where she dreamed dreams that no mortal had dared dream before.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: And I get in the coffin. Like, oh, you have to get in the coffin for this shot. It's so funny. And he's like, oh, I have the lid somewhere.
Let's put the lid on it. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what? And he did. He put the lid on it.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Oh, I've got some nails. Let's just see what it feels like nailed together.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: I feel like that always happens to me too, because I definitely stepped into an iron maiden in Czechia.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: Okay, hold on.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: That was Slovakia. Still, you can't.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: You can't say. It just always happens to me. You sought out an iron maiden and then chose to get in it.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: It's not like it just, oops, it was there. We sought out Kachisque, the castle, and then it just happened to be there.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: And you just happened to want to step inside of it.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: How could you not do that?
[00:06:19] Speaker B: I'm sure a lot of people see that iron maiden and don't get in it.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: My boss was encouraging me, and I'm like, this is gonna be the stage.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: That seems alarming.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: It does. It really does. And then my sweater got stuck to it. That's what I get.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. But, yeah, I got that coffin lid closed on me.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: In lieu of your annual employment review, just step into this iron maiden.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Totally normal. Nothing.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: We'll let you know how it's going.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Oh, no.
Oh, no.
And speaking of Edgar Allan Poe, I have to say, since the spooky season is here, we recently worked with Richmond tourism to highlight Poe on the go. They have this augmented reality app where you can kind of wander around Richmond, and Poe talks about highlighted places. But it's not just Poe. It's the bust from the Poe Museum, the statue.
And we went to a bunch of places that Poe had his footprint in in Richmond, and I.
I didn't realize. I mean, I guess it made sense because he lived in Richmond for so long, but I just didn't realize how many places are still here that are so Poe related.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't either.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Mm. You can go to Monumental Church, which is just a landmark at this point. It's a very strangely shaped landmark.
It's, like, octagonal and has, like, a weird dome that. They don't make churches like that or buildings like that anymore because there's no real support.
Right.
Like, there's no flawed architecture.
It was designed by the guy that designed The Washington Monument.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Okay, well, that's still going strong.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. There's that. And the church is still there.
It's the only one of its kind still standing, so.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Okay, well, that's not a great selling point.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: And they have post family pew.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Okay. So they, like, kept the actual pew that he.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
All the architecture inside is still the same, like, the benches and everything. And they have a plaque there. It was his adopted mother's pew because she would go to church, and she would bring him. And they have, like, diary accounts of some girl that, like, was, like, swooning over him in church service. So this is.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: This is my own ignorance of the topic, but do families usually sit in the same pew every time? If you're, like, a regular churchgoer, you're like, oh, that's.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: It's a timer.
Not now.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: Sit there.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: It was. It was medieval times.
The best seats were saved for the people with money and people that gave to the church.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: That's kind of stupid.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: So it is. So if you were a patron of the church, you would have your own pew. And so that's not really. They don't. They don't hold seats at churches anymore.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: But I think it had still transcended to that time period.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Just like a default thing. Like the same families are showing up to the same church, and they just kind of sit in the same place.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: But then I think it was their pew because they gave money to the church.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: Oh, I see.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: And it was also. It was a symbol of status, too, in medieval time. And I'm sure back, you know, in post time, there was still that class system.
So it was. It was. They were paying money, and they were of a class where they could sit here.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Got it.
[00:09:32] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah. There was a. There was a whole. I can't. I don't know off the top of my head, but there was a whole breakdown. They gave me in one of the churches in Germany about medieval times and, like, where people were required to sit and families were required to sit together in certain places. So I'm sure some of that, like, transcended time to that time period.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Yeah. I've never had a pew.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: I've never had a pew either.
And Linden Rowe in was also cool because that's where he used to meet with his love, Elmira, his tragic love. Do you know that story?
[00:10:05] Speaker B: I.
I mean, no, not well enough to recite it off top, but I know. I know that. Was there more than one tragic love?
[00:10:12] Speaker A: There were several. So Elmyra was the first and last love of Poe's life.
So they were together when they were teenagers, and they were, you know, hopelessly in love. And she went away and like, to school or to study. And they were sending each other love letters back and forth, and her father intercepted the letters. So she no longer thought that he loved her, and he no longer thought that she loved him, and they wound up marrying other people.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: It's the dad 101 playbook.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: I know.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: Ruined two loves at once.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: And there were several wives he had that died in the. In between.
And then at the very end of his life, they reunited. They were both happened to be single. They came back together. They still loved each other, and they planned to get married. So they were engaged and they're happy and they're planning their wedding. And right before their wedding, he dies.
Yeah.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: So the dad that ruins the first love, he's just not into goth kids.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Right, right, right, right. I mean, that's kind of what happened, right? He was weird father of gothic literature. Right?
Yeah.
You're absurd.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: It just makes me think Southfard. The goth kids.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And the vampire kids.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: Yeah. The vamp kids and the emo kids.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: The emo kids were our generation.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: So were the goth kids.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: They were 80s. Right.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Well, they're timeless. Since little Eddie.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Founded them.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: He did. He founded a generation and only summon.
They summon Edgar Aganpo. You're right, they do.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: Not to make this a total tangent. Yeah. Anyways, this dad was so team Emo.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: Right?
[00:12:04] Speaker B: My daughter's gonna end up with emo kid, not a goth kid like you. Get out.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: Oh, boy. I think of emo as like our generation of.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: I'll be honest, I lived it and still kind of don't know the distinction.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Emo kids are more whiny.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: I mean, maybe that's true. And I wouldn't have place myself in either, you know, camp, but if I had to be one, I would be more emo than goth, probably.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: Don't you think so?
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Maybe.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: I mean, I don't think I'm.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: I.
Yeah, I guess so. I mean, you know, if you think about what you would call goth. I mean. Sorry, emo music.
I mean, like, that's just the personification of emo. Right.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: But I like some of the music.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. So do I.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Like, what would like Linkin Park.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Lincoln park is emo.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: So.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
Good to know.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Team emo with the dad.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: We're with the dad.
And then, you know, it all goes to where the mystery of his death. Like, do you know about his death.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: I know. It was a mystery.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: It was a mystery.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Kind of not clear what happened.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: Yeah, they're not sure. They found him, like, unable to speak. Just kind of trashed on the road and couldn't quite figure out what was going on and took him in and he didn't make it.
Mm.
There's like, conspiracy theories around it, too.
Conspiracy theories around everything.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Yikes. So you're supposed to get married?
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Yeah. How sad.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: To his original love.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: His OG Love. His childhood sweetheart.
[00:13:50] Speaker C: See?
[00:13:50] Speaker B: At least ours ended better. For now.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Wow. And you know, that whole tangent, by the way, that was all a tangent on the fact that Linden Rowan is where he used to meet with her. Her name was Elmyra, and that's where they would, like, hide off because they wanted to hide their love because they knew, like, the parents didn't approve.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: It's like classic Romeo and Juliet.
Emo house. Emo house Goth.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: Right. Just feuding away.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Feuding away.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: The Montagues and the Capulets.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: I think it's exactly the same thing.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Which one would have been the emos, The Montagues or the Capulets?
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Oh, see, I don't know. Like, the character traits of each house.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: The Montagues, I think, would have been.
[00:14:33] Speaker C: What?
[00:14:33] Speaker A: The emos.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Why?
You're the thing.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: They just seem so much more aggro.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: I'll be honest. I'm pulling most of my knowledge from the Leonardo di Galileo move.
Romeo and Juliet.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: So that was a really interesting adaptation of it, that one, though.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: It's word for word.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: It is. That's what I'm saying. I know that. Actually, it is. I will say that was fascinating.
They also. I think I told you this for the first time the other day. 10 Things I Hate about you is just a modern adaptation where they change the language of Taming of the Shrew.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And you also told me.
What is the other movie?
Oh, man, I'm blanking on it. I bought it recently and you told me about it. Where there.
Sarah Michelle Gellar's like, the.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Oh, Cruel Intentions. It's Dangerous Liaisons.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: I didn't know that either.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: It's like a French play. I think it was a book. Yeah.
It's just. And that's like a Victorian kind of piece that they modernly adapted. Yeah.
That's not. I like the pokes. It. Classic literature. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm trying to think. The other peace centric places. St. John's Church. I don't think you knew this either. St. John's Church near Shacko Bottom in Richmond was the Patrick Henry Church.
Like, give me liberty or give me death.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Yeah. I knew that church was here. I wouldn't have been able to tell you which church it was, and I didn't know they were the same church. Yeah, I could have given you no useful information.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: That's where Poe's mother is buried. His actual mother.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Eliza Arnold Poe.
She was an actress.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Oh, was she?
You theater types.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: We went off on a lot of theater stuff here.
But let's get.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: I had not a lot of information to give.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: You saw Masquerade. We can tell people about that now. We should do that at some point.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah, we should do that.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: We should definitely do that. Because I know people are dying to hear about it.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Dying to hear about it.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Dying to hear about it. All right, let's get into this Poe interview. It's really, really fascinating. And Chris is so wonderfully passionate.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Let's dream some dreams that no mortal should have dreamed before.
Nevermore. Nevermore.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: Hawk the Raven. Nevermore.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. I've been waiting my whole life for that moment.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: We are here today at the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia, and we're going to talk with Chris about Edgar Allan Poe's history here in Richmond, Virginia.
[00:17:12] Speaker C: All right. Right now, you are in the heart of the Poe museum. We opened 102 years ago, back in 1922. And it started with a garden and a shrine modeled after Poe's poetry. So we are in a little shrine. And this came from the lines, thou wast it all to me. Love, for which my soul did pine, a green isle in the sea, Love, a fountain and a shrine.
So here's a shrine made out of bricks from the office where he used to work. All the pieces of the garden, the plants, the bricks, the lumber came from different PO places have been demolished over the years.
And right in the heart of the Po shrine is our bust of Po. And you tell. People think they know this guy. They think they've grown up with him. They kiss him. They leave him presents, room keys in case he feels like going out.
And this one is actually a copy of the original one, used to be here until 1987.
Then one dark October night, he just got wandered off.
And he was missing for a few days. The museum, of course, was frantic. They put out a call to the media. They said, we won't press charges. Please return our bust unharmed. And then at the stroke of midnight, they got the ransom call.
And the guy on the phone said, I'll tell you where your bust of Poe is only if you read me Poe's. Poem, the spirits of the Dead over the phone.
So they read it to him and it turns out the Poe thief had taken him out drinking with him to a bar called the Raven Inn. And he just showed up carrying an 80 pound bust of Poe and said, I met my friend here in the alley's kind of thirsty like a drink. And they just sat there, had a beer together until the cops showed up. And then the guy who purloined the Poe never been found. He might still be out there somewhere.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Wow, what a story.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: So this is a replica.
The original we keep inside locked up. And this time it's bolted down to the pedestal so won't go anywhere.
But he keeps watch over the garden along with our poem museum cat, Edgar, who's been drifting around here.
Do you want to meet Edgar?
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Yes, I do.
Oh, hi. Aren't you a sweet boy.
[00:19:26] Speaker C: So this is Edgar and we found him 12 years ago right here. He was right behind the shrine.
He was a litter of three kitties and they were orphaned. We never found out where they came from, but we took him in. He's been living here ever since, greeting people.
So you ready to see some of the buildings?
[00:19:46] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:19:46] Speaker C: We've got actually the world's largest collection of Poe's stuff.
So let's go check out some of the highlights.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Sounds good.
Oh, what a sweet boy.
One of our rescue cats is a black cat and I just. They're just so much more. I feel like loving overall.
[00:20:05] Speaker C: And oh yeah, you should see him when the school groups come and he just walks a little line along the edge of the school group so everybody can pet him.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: Aw.
[00:20:14] Speaker C: This ivy's from Poe's mother's grave. And those bricks are from his home at Greenwich Village. And, and this bench right here, that's a piece of his home over on Bank Street.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:20:27] Speaker C: And this is the oldest house still standing in the original city limits of Richmond. The old stone house.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:20:36] Speaker C: So here's Edgar Allan Poe's childhood bed. This is where little Eddie used to sleep growing up dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared a dream before.
And one of his classmates said when Edward was a little kid, his greatest fear at night was he'd hear some noise from across the darkened room and imagine that somebody out there that he couldn't see was watching as he slept. So he'd pull these covers up over his head so tight he could barely breathe. Because all little kids know the boogeyman can't get you through the covers.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: True.
[00:21:07] Speaker C: And then a couple decades later, all grown up and little Eddie wrote a story about a little old man alone in bed at night who hears a noise across the room. And it doesn't go well for that old man. He ends up under the floorboards there, right? So imagine what nightmares he had in this bed. Inspired horror stories he'd write decades later.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:21:27] Speaker C: And his life started out pretty tragically. His mother died when he was 2 and he was taken in by foster parents, John and Francis Allen. Right there, they're ones who gave him the middle name Allen.
And those original life portraits of John and Francis, they took him in, they never legally adopted him, so he never changed his last name to Alan. He always kept the last name of Poe.
But over here are things from their house like irons and salt cellars and glassware, paintings, tables.
It said when little Edgar was three years old, he could recite poetry. So his foster mother used to stand him up on one of her dinner tables and little Edgar would recite poetry to her dinner guests. Imagine a, a little Eddie standing on that table.
And over here, this is his sister's piano forte.
And you never hear about Poe's sister. She's not little. Photograph up there, that's Rosalie Poe.
And when the kids were orphaned, she went to live with this lady, Jane Scott McKenzie. And the McKenzie's ran a girls school, so she kind of lucked out because they could take care of her and get her an education.
And Edgar lucked out because he wants an all boys school.
But his sister lived at the girls school, so he had an inside connection there. And he started using his sister to sneak love poems to girls he liked.
So imagine getting love poetry from this little 12 year old emo pup.
Apparently the girls really liked it until they found he'd sent everybody the same poem.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Oh no.
[00:22:57] Speaker C: So maybe he got a little trouble for that. But he kept doing that his whole life. So a lot of his poems changed titles over the years as he dedicates to different women.
And in fact, Annabel Lee is his last poem. It was published two days after he died.
About four different women came forward saying, he told me I was Annabel Lee. So everybody thought they were the real Annabel Lee.
But this is his first fiance right there. Her name is Elmira Royster.
And this is one of those tragic stories. You know, they're teenagers, they fall in love. But her father's in that little miniature right there said, there's no way you're marrying my daughter. You're not good enough for my daughter.
So Edgar and El Meyer became secretly engaged, planned to get married. As soon as he graduated college, went off to the University of Virginia. They sent love letters back and forth. But she stopped answering his letters because her father was intercepting the letters back and forth convinced her that Poe had forgotten about her. So she married somebody else. So he came back home after one year at school and she dumped him.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:24:01] Speaker C: So there's no happy stories here. It's all going to be very melancholy and morose, but we get used to that around here.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: It defined his life, right?
[00:24:09] Speaker C: Yeah, it helped. It inspired some really beautiful poetry. And the weird thing about this, they got back together.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:24:17] Speaker C: When he's 40 years old, she'd been widowed, he'd been widowed, and they finally got back together and they're about to get married.
And then he died 10 days before they're going to be married. So you thought, there's going to be a happy ending. But no, no happy ending.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: Never happy ending.
[00:24:33] Speaker C: And of course, people, they come here, they always ask us, is the Poe Museum haunted? Have you seen anything? And there is a legend that if you look up the stairs and call Edgar's name, you'll see him staring back down at you. If you want to give it a try.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: Oh, boy.
Edgar.
[00:24:53] Speaker C: See, he's kind of jolly there, isn't he?
[00:24:54] Speaker A: I do.
[00:24:55] Speaker C: Dressed up for Christmas.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: He is holly, jolly spirit.
[00:25:02] Speaker C: Now, this building was made out of pieces from Poe's childhood home was about to be torn down back in 1927. So the founders of the Poe Museum. So if you're going to tear it down anyway, can we have the pieces to bring here and put them back together? And when you're in here, we actually still have this staircase.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:25:23] Speaker C: So little Edgar used to run up and down those stairs growing up.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: Over here we have all sorts of nice rarities. Like the chair that Poe used when he was editing a magazine here called the Southern Literary Messenger. The headquarters five blocks down the street.
And it said that Poe's boss chopped off the back of the chair like that to make it uncomfortable. So he'd sit up straight, not get lazy. We actually have a piece here that might have helped inspire one of Poe's stories. It's right back this way.
What's your favorite Poe story?
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Oh, what is my favorite Poe story?
[00:26:03] Speaker C: There's a certain tale that they like to tell.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: Tell tale Heart. I like that.
[00:26:08] Speaker C: That's the one.
And there's that line. It was a low, dull, quote, quick sound such as a watch makes enveloped in cotton. I knew it. Well, as the beating of the old man's heart.
This is the watch that was ticking away in Poe's pocket when he wrote that story.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:26:25] Speaker C: So this is almost like a piece of literary history right here.
But speaking of literary history, who's the next biggest American writer from Poe's time? Think of that. Think about Halloween time, about a legend of Sleepy Hollow.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:26:43] Speaker C: We have a letter right over there that Poe wrote to Washington Irving.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:26:48] Speaker C: This is Poe at the start of his career. Washington Irving's already an established author by then, and Poe's just kicking off things. He wants to publish his first book of short stories. So he writes to Washington Irving, says, can you write me a book blurb? They didn't call them book blurbs back then. They called them your opinion that I can, using the advertisements in my book. But this is Poe asking for a book blurb.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:27:12] Speaker C: And Irving responded, because this is Poe's first book of short stories. And right down there, you can see Washington Irving.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:27:24] Speaker C: And I told you about Elmira.
This is the engagement ring that Poe gave to Elmira Shelton just before he died. There's actually a letter that survives. When he got it, he wrote to his aunt and said, I got the ring. He's so proud of himself. He finally saved up. He scrimped and got every little penny and got that ring for her.
And it's got his name engraved on the inside. You can see there. It's engraved Edgar on the inside. And this isn't your typical engagement ring, even for back then. They might not necessarily have a diamond, but they'd have a precious stone. But he couldn't afford that.
And that same letter where he's bragging about how he finally got the ring. He also says his hotel kicked him out and confiscated his luggage because he hadn't paid his bill.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:28:05] Speaker C: So he didn't have the money for this, but he spent everything he had so he could get her that ring because he loved her that much.
Oh, and up here, this is our Mona Lisa. People around the world know this image. This is the face of a million memes.
Every Internet meme you see of Po. This is that face there. It's on T shirts, it's on socks.
It's on polka dot shorts. We used to sell polka dot shorts in the shop.
This is the face everybody knows from bobbleheads, comic books, book covers. And it's a tiny daguerreotype, a little silver plated piece of copper.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:41] Speaker C: So four days before this little picture was taken, he was about to end it all. He wrote A letter to Annie Richmond and said, I want you to be with me when I die, so get on down here. I'm about to kill myself. And he swallowed a bunch of laudanum, which was opium, mixed with alcohol.
He threw it up, so that's why he survived. But here he is four days after that. And then the night before this was taken, one of his friends took him out drinking, thinking that would cheer him up, not knowing that took about a glass of wine to make Poe staggering drunk. He'd be sick for days afterwards.
So now it stands as a monument to the darkest moment of Poe's life, to this misery, this despair.
But another four days later, Sarah Helen Whitman agreed to marry him.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:29:26] Speaker C: This is her right up here.
But she had a condition. She said, if you ever touch alcohol again, the wedding's off.
So it lasted a month.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:29:37] Speaker C: But fortunately, after Poe died, she said she was sitting alone in her study upstairs, and she was asking one of those mental questions. You think, oh, I should have asked him this, or I should have told him this before he died. And she said she heard a knocking coming from the table right in front of her.
So she thought, well, why don't I ask another mental question? And she'd heard knocking from a chair right behind her, then another one. And she said she heard a knocking from the hallway outside the room.
And this was 1849, 1850. So this is right after the Fox sisters became famous. And they famously heard the knocking sounds and said that was a spirit talking to them. So she hired a professional medium to help her communicate with Poe through the knocking sounds.
And after about six months, she became a medium herself.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:30:27] Speaker C: And she would go into a trance, and she would do automatic writing and try to communicate with Poe. And before long, people were sending her letters asking her, can you ask Poe this question for me? Can you pass on this message for me?
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:30:39] Speaker C: So the spiritualists really adopted Poe early on, and even though he was dead, it didn't stop him from writing. There's several poems written after his death by spiritualist mediums who said that he wrote them through them.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:30:54] Speaker C: So it kind of goes back to her.
And we also have this nice monument here. This is the actor's memorial to Po, commissioned in 1882, but was completed in 1884 and installed 1885 at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York City.
It was actually presented to the city by the most famous Shakespearean actor of the day, Edwin Booth. Okay, guys, Little brother shot the president.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:31:23] Speaker C: And if you ever want the Experience of being buried alive. You can hop on in and give this coffin a test drive.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: Oh.
Oh, wow. This is very tiny.
[00:31:40] Speaker C: You ready?
[00:31:40] Speaker A: Oh, boy. Yeah, I'm good.
So tiny.
[00:31:44] Speaker C: Most people there don't complain.
Yeah, they custom made that for me.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Really.
[00:31:57] Speaker C: Let me lie down, and they built it around me.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:32:01] Speaker C: Yeah. I think it was a hint.
So, you ready to see the death room?
[00:32:13] Speaker A: Yes. Definitely.
[00:32:18] Speaker C: One of the first questions people ask when they visit the museum is, where are the restrooms? But the second question they ask is, how did Poe die? So we have a whole room just devoted to his death.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: Okay. It's kind of a mystery.
[00:32:32] Speaker C: Yeah. They've never figured it out.
There's about 26 different published theories about what might have happened to him at the time. We know he was traveling from Richmond up to Philadelphia.
And then he disappears for four days. And they find him, he's semi conscious, dressed in somebody else's clothes, not making any sense, talking to shadows in the wall.
And the doctor asked him, what became of your trunk? What became of your clothes? Where have you been these days? He couldn't remember, Remember?
And then he started screaming the name Reynolds over and over again. We don't know who Reynolds was.
There's lots of different theories. They asked him, well, why are you wearing somebody else's clothes? They didn't know.
So finally he said, lord, help my poor soul, and died at the age of 40.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:33:17] Speaker C: And for the longest time, we didn't have any medical records of what happened to him. All we've been able to discover since 1849 is the mortality statistics for Baltimore. And they say he died of, which means inflammation of the brain.
So it rules out some of these things. Like maybe the murder theory. There was a theory that Elmira's brothers murdered him to keep him from marrying their sisters. So maybe that rules out that one.
But meningitis, that's still on the table. Rabies, possibly.
I don't think rabies, though, because he was able to drink water when he's in the hospital.
But some of these, like beading, we can probably rule out because they would have seen if. There are bruises on there.
Ever since you first heard one of Poe's stories, you probably were wondering what his socks look like.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: Oh, definitely.
[00:34:08] Speaker C: These are Poe's socks. Imagine that.
His smelly feet used to be inside of these.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: They're so pretty.
[00:34:15] Speaker C: Yeah, these are really kind of nice. And look at the vest. Nice silk, elaborately embroidered. This is expensive stuff. And even during Poe's lifetime, people could say, how can you afford to dress like that? Didn't I just loan you $50? You never paid back. And here you are dressed to the nines. And then they get closer and they realize, yeah, they're expensive clothes. But he's been wearing them over and over again. And you tell the socks have been mended multiple times. His mother in law used to take on sewing projects to earn extra money. So she probably sewed these together. Said, why can't you take better care of your things, Eddie?
But it just shows you he took a lot of pride in his appearance. Which makes it all the more unusual that when he is found just before his death, he wasn't wearing his own clothes. He was wearing clothes that didn't fit. They were dirty, they were cheap. And people said that's not what he would have worn. This doesn't make any sense.
And I don't know if he knew he was dying, but he used to tell people that he thought he'd never see them again. That he had a presentment that he felt like his end was near. But he said that a lot.
And there's his boot hooks used for attacking his victims. Actually just use them to pull up his boots. That's not as exciting that way.
So even at the end, he was staying at his sister's house after he got kicked out of the hotel. And this is that trunk that he carried with him during his last lecture tour. He was traveling, trying to raise money to start his own magazine. He thought he finally had hope to achieve wealth and security.
He said, after a long and bitter struggle with illness, poverty, the thousand evils which attend them. I find myself at length in a position to establish myself permanently. And to triumph over all difficulties.
So he had hope right up until the end that he was going to make it. He was going to be a success.
And that's why he was traveling around trying to raise money to start his own magazine.
But then he got together with Elmira instead of continuing his tour. Stayed the summer in Richmond with her.
And this is the trunk that was left at the hotel when he died. And this is his walking stick right here.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:36:25] Speaker C: It's got his name right on the tip down there.
I mentioned that Poe died in a hospital.
And after his death, people came to see him lying in state and to clip locks of hair. So we've got our own little Poe hair up there. Look, it looks like little Daddy Long legs.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
Do you ever want to clone him?
[00:36:45] Speaker C: Yeah, there we go.
And that key was found in his pocket.
But this Is a really nice piece. Check this out. Look at this piece of wood right there.
What's your first thought? What do you think that is?
[00:36:58] Speaker A: I'm not sure it has. I mean, the paper on it stands out to me.
I don't know. What is it?
[00:37:04] Speaker C: It's a piece of his coffin.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:37:08] Speaker C: He was buried in an unmarked grave for 26 years.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:37:13] Speaker C: And when finally his family wasn't coming forward to put a monument on his grave, teachers and their students, they started the Pennies for Poe campaign and they raised the money and they got him the nice big monument he has now. And they said instead of leaving him way in the back of the cemetery, let's move him to the front.
So they had him dug up and moved across the cemetery. As they're moving him, the coffin fell apart. He fell out. Gave everybody last good scare. It was great. He would have enjoyed that. And three different newspapers next day comments and said how his skin was all gone, the muscle was gone, his mandible had fallen off. A little teeth resting all around his skull. But they comment each of these newspapers commented on what nice teeth he had. So apparently practiced good dental hygiene. And they eventually scooped up all the PO pieces and put them in a new PO box. And people grabbed chunks of the original coffin as souvenirs. They said this came from the head of the coffin. So this would have been just inches from Poe's decomposing corpse. This is Poe's first biographer. Rufus Griswold hated Poe, despised him.
So that's why we have his portrait. Because he helps us tell that Poe's not as bad as people's reputation. They think he's this evil person, this madman. They mistake Poe for his stories. But really it's this guy building up the mythology around Poe.
The problem is that mythology made Poe even more popular because people wanted to read something read by a genuine madman. They wanted to believe it. He became a cult hero. In France they called the poet Maudit or the mad poet.
But Poe is actually just a really hardworking writer and a really innovative writer. Vince the detective story and St. John's Church. That's where Poe's mother is buried. And you can still visit her grave up there today.
And one of my favorites is Shocko Hill Cemetery.
And it was open in 1822. So this was the new cemetery when Poe was growing up. And when he was a kid, he fell in love. He was 14 years old. He fell in love with this woman called Jane Stith Craig Stannard. He called her the first purely Ideal love of my soul.
So you know what happened next?
She died, of course. So he kept a visual at her grave for a while after her death. Because she was his first great, ideal, perfect love.
And even after he got married, years later, he was married when he was 27, he used to take his wife up to Shocko Hill Cemetery on Sunday strolls and say, that's my first love's grave right there. That's my Helen of Troy there. The poem To Helen is dedicated to her.
So when you're visiting Shocko Hill Cemetery, very likely you're walking in his footsteps. You're passing by Jane Stanier's grave, the Allen's graves. His foster parents are buried right there. Elmira Shelton is buried up there. So this is a place he knew really well.
Well, one of the most important parts of Poe's legacy, of course, is his writing. We gotta remember the writing. We got to remember he's the guy we're still reading. He's one of the few poets that most people as adults can still remember, even if they only remember a line or two. Quoth the Raven, nevermore.
But he was really, really proud of his swimming.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:40:27] Speaker C: When he was 15 years old, he started out at Mayo's island and swam against the tide and made it six miles against the tide to Warwick on the James, which is out where the Richmond Deepwater Terminal is.
It took, I think, from nine in the morning till one in the afternoon to swim that far. He came out red as a lobster. This was covered in newspapers of the times. That's how we verify, because Poe made up stuff a lot, Right? But this was in the newspapers not just in Virginia, but in New Jersey and other states.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: What is your personal connection to Poe?
[00:40:59] Speaker C: Well, when I was a kid, our school librarian about 5th grade. So were you 10 years old then?
She made the mistake of having us read Never bet the devil your head it was a comedy. It's kind of a funny story up until the guy gets his head chopped off. But even that's in a humorous way, right? And then we did Hop Frog, which is another humorous story. So I started out thinking that Poe was funny.
So by the time you read the horror stories, you're prepared for the comedy. Those little one liners he inserts in there, like Gold's the cask of Amontillado, where the victim, he's willingly going down to the catacombs with his murderer. And the murderer keeps saying, oh no, you can't follow me. Your health is precious. It's damp here.
I perceive you have a cough. And the victim says, oh, no. Tis nothing. I should not die of a cough.
The murderer says, true, true.
So there's a great little jokes in there, if you're. If you're prepared to look for them. Poe always embedded a little bit of humor here and there. It's dark humor, but that's what you come to expect from all that ground Poe.
[00:42:08] Speaker A: Right?
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for speaking with us today, Chris.
[00:42:12] Speaker C: Well, thanks for coming out here, and I hope you have a melancholy rest of the day.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: You too.
[00:42:17] Speaker C: I shall.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: I mean, how great was that?
[00:42:21] Speaker B: Pretty good.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: Pretty good. And that episode ends with Chris reciting Poe at the Pump House, which you.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: Also have a good interview of.
[00:42:31] Speaker A: Just.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: The Pump House itself is an interesting place.
[00:42:34] Speaker A: There's a lot of weird history here in Richmond. My favorite part of that interview, by the way. So the Pump House is an old water pump house water plant where they would pull the water up from the river to bring it into the reservoir so that the town could have water. And this one was built because they weren't happy with the old one they were using.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:42:52] Speaker A: And he says, the guy says, and I quote, well, the old one was right under, like, you know, by a Hollywood cemetery. And they were worried about the dead people juices leaking into the river and didn't want to have the water pump right next to it.
He used the words dead people juices.
[00:43:13] Speaker B: These people are thinkers.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: They are thinkers. I was like, oh, man.
[00:43:17] Speaker B: Yeah, Deadpool Jesus is a great line. So kudos.
[00:43:20] Speaker A: I like that.
[00:43:21] Speaker B: But, yeah, that the Pump House has just some weird history associated with it, separate from po. And we found that and did that interview without knowing the crossover. Really?
[00:43:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: Then we did Poe, and we're gonna do a Poe event at the Pump House. At the Pump House.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: We just did that.
[00:43:40] Speaker B: We just talked about the Pump House.
[00:43:42] Speaker A: We have to do this.
And. Yeah, that's weird too, because all these rich, snazzy.
[00:43:47] Speaker B: You know, it was like a hidden party scene.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: Used to have a ballroom above the water pump stations. So, like, they would go looking down.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: At the dead people.
[00:43:55] Speaker A: Jesus.
Pouring down into the city, and it would, like, vibrate. They have their parties. Everything's like kind of vibrating a little bit. And then they would go. Just hang out by the water pumps when they wanted to get away.
Yeah, yeah. It's really weird in a good way.
But anyway, that's all we have for you guys today. I can't wait to share Weird World Adventure season two with you. It's so close. We're almost out on prime official date. Tbd.
Tbd, tbd. It will come out this fall very soon.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: She's aggressively working on it.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: Aggressively. That's what I was doing up until we walked in to do this podcast.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: Yep, yep, yep.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Alrighty, you guys, thank you so much for tuning in. I'm your host, Mallory.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: And I'm your host, Michael.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: And until next time, everybody stay weird.
