Edgar Allan Poe Museum

Jacob Ege
ca. 1750
1914 East Main Street

Near the corner of 20th and Main streets in Shockoe Bottom sits the oldest building in Richmond. Known to many as the Old Stone House, it was built by German immigrant Jacob Ege around 1750 for himself and his wife. Their descendants retained ownership of the house until 1911, an impressive lineage. When Marquis de Lafayette visited Richmond in 1824 he payed the house’s tenants a visit. It is here when Edgar Allan Poe enters the story. At 15, he served in an honor guard which welcomed the dignitary to Richmond and guarded the house during de Lafayette’s visit.

Edgar Allan Poe spent much of his early life in Richmond. None of his former residences are still standing but many of the buildings he frequented appear as they did in his youth in the near East End. He began his career in writing in the city and worked as an assistant editor at the Southern Literary Messenger, the offices of which were just five blocks west of today’s Poe Museum.

The Poe Museum was founded in 1922 and has amassed the largest collection of Poe manuscripts and memorabilia in existence. The Old Stone House serves as the perfect repository for such items, steeped as it is in antebellum atmosphere. Its asymmetrical composition of dormer windows and irregular masonry, stained by years of exposure, makes the building appear haunted. Foreboding gives way to charm in the rear yard, an atmospheric garden in the manner of Charles Gillette (1). The building’s squat massing and loose site relationship reveal its age and help it to stand out on the block.

And the Edgar Allan Poe Museum does stand out, if it does nothing else. It is decidedly out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood where much larger buildings have been the rule for well over a century. Rarely do buildings have such significance in such a variety of areas, from current function to historic beginnings. It seems certain that the Old Stone House will always be counted among Richmond’s most important landmarks.

D.OK.

Photographs my M.F.A.

Edgar Allan Poe Museum Website:
http://www.poemuseum.org/index.php

1. A leading landscape architect in Richmond working in the first half of the 20th century. He is well known for creating a sense of enclosure in outdoor space.