Poe in Richmond: Allan Mementos Found in Forgotten Trunk

Edgar Allan Poe's relationship with his foster parents, John and Frances Allan, ended with Frances's death in 1829, when he was twenty, and John Allan's remarriage two years later. By the time of Allan's passing in 1834, Poe was excluded from his former guardian's will. A year later, Poe wrote Nathaniel Beverley Tucker that "the want of parental affection was the heaviest of my trials" (CL 1:79).

For the rest of Poe's life, John Allan's second wife, Louisa Gabriella Patterson Allan (1800–1881), and her three sons resided in the same Richmond mansion that Poe had once called home. While Poe's relationship with his foster father is well documented in Poe's letters to Allan preserved at the Valentine Museum and edited by Mary Newton Standard in 1923, far less is known about the other Allans. Louisa Allan became a popular Richmond hostess, making the Allan mansion the scene of over four decades of lavish parties. Her masquerade balls and dinners were as celebrated as the famous visitors she entertained. Her sons—John Allan, Jr. (1831–1863), William Galt Allan (1832–1868), and Patterson Allan (1834–1872)—each attended the University of Virginia and fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.

Some documents and photographs have recently come to light that will be of interest to those seeking more information about the Allans' lives after Poe. The items descended by inheritance into the possession of Eleanor Leahy, the great-great granddaughter of Louisa Allan's executor, George Washington Mayo (1840–1902), who received some of the pieces directly from Mrs. Allan. It was also from Mayo that the Valentine Museum received both Poe's letters to Allan and Robert Sully's portrait of Frances Valentine Allan, which the Valentine Museum donated to the Poe Museum in 1936.

Mrs. Leahy uncovered these artifacts in an old cigar box and in an early nineteenth-century horsehair trunk that once belonged to Louisa Allan's sister Lucinda Anne Patterson Randolph (1801–1882). Before donating the trunk to the Randolphs' ancestral home—Tuckahoe Plantation, near Richmond—Leahy removed the trunk's contents. Realizing their significance, she shared these items with the Poe Museum's curator and permitted their reproduction in this article.

Among the pieces in Leahy's collection is a handwritten version of Poe's poem "The Bells" in Mayo's handwriting and dated "Princeton, New Jersey/1857." Written, perhaps from memory, a mere eight years after the poem's first printing, Mayo's version differs substantially from Poe's authorized versions in that it merely combines a few verses from two different stanzas. Mayo's manuscript reads:

Fig 1.

Lines from Poe's poem "The Bells" in George W. Mayo's handwriting.

Collection of Eleanor Leahy.

Hear the mellow wedding bells,Golden bells!What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!—Hear the tolling of the bells—Iron bells!What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!In the silence of the night,How we shiver with affrightAt the melancholy menace of their tone!For every sound that that floatsFrom the rust within their throatsIs a groan.

EA Poe.

A more significant document in the Leahy collection is a letter by General Winfield Scott (1786–1866) containing a description of John Allan's death. Scott was married to Louisa Allan's first cousin Maria Mayo Scott. General Scott rose to fame through his service in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, the Second Seminole War, and the Mexican-American War. In 1841, he became Commanding General of the United States Army and held the post for twenty years. He also ran for president, as the Whig Party's candidate, in 1852. The distinguished general was a friend of John Allan's and supported Poe's successful application to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Writing to John Allan from West Point on November 6, 1830, Poe states that General Scott was "very polite and attentive" towards him (CL...