On Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday in 1949, a figure dressed in black appeared at his grave in Baltimore, later dubbed the “Poe Toaster,” and left three red roses and a half-bottle of cognac. This annual tribute continued for many years, with the last appearance in 2009. The identity of the Poe Toaster remains a mystery, with controversy over who started the tradition. The Edgar Allan Poe Society preserves the gifts left behind, and the tradition was declared over after the last known appearance in 2009.
In 1949, 100 years after Edgar Allan Poe’s death, a figure dressed in black appeared at his grave in Baltimore on the writer’s birthday. The figure, later dubbed the “Poe Toaster,” raised a glass of cognac in tribute to the dead poet, and proceeded to leave three red roses and a half-bottle of cognac on Edgar Allan Poe’s grave. This was the beginning of an annual tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, which continued for many years afterward. The last time the Poe Toaster appeared was in 2009 on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the writer’s birth.
Poe’s life was as strange and dark as the short stories he wrote, so it would seem fitting that his afterlife also contains mysteries. Poe, a famous American Gothic and Romantic poet and writer, was born on January 19, 1809. A tragic life followed, which ended in his untimely death at the age of 40 on October 7, 1849. Not only were they the cause and the circumstances of his mysterious and cryptic death, but so are the events that followed.
Little is known about the identity of the Poe Toaster. The figure is male, dressed in black and carrying a silver-tipped staff. He always shows up in the wee hours of the morning on the Edgar Allan Poe anniversary and always performs the same ritual. While this has been observed on numerous occasions, the Poe Toaster is rarely photographed and is often allowed to perform his tribute undisturbed.
In addition to leaving the three roses and liqueur, the Poe Toaster has sometimes left notes expressing various feelings. Some have been mere tributes to Edgar Allan Poe, but a note was left in 1999 stating that the original toaster had disappeared the previous year and that the tradition would continue as ‘a son’. The new Poe Toaster has aroused controversy among the followers of the event, also because the notes he left in the following years have expressed controversial opinions. In 2006, due to these statements, a group of angry fans tried unsuccessfully to approach him as he paid his annual tribute.
The controversy over the identity of the Poe Toaster continued into August 2007, when Sam Porpora, historian of the Westminster Church and cemetery where Edgar Allan Poe is buried, claimed that he started the tradition in 1967. Despite Sam Porpora’s claim , the first journalistic mention of the Poe Toaster was in 1950. The Edgar Allan Poe Society disclaimed the historian’s claim, and little else was said of his story.
For the next two years, attendance at the event increased, according to the Edgar Allan Poe Society. The company not only preserves the memory of Edgar Allan Poe, but has many of the gifts left behind in its possession. The last known appearance of the mysterious Poe Toaster, whose identity remains a mystery, was in 2009; after not appearing for the next two years, the curator of the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum declared the tradition to be over. Though other people have tried to take the job, none have received the same accolade as the “official” toaster.
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