Later+Life+and+Death

"No reliable evidence exists about about what happend to or within Poe between September 27 and October 3, a week later, when a printer named Joseph Walker saw him at Gunner's Hall, a Baltimore tavern, strangely dressed and semiconscious," as stated in section Early September-Octorber 8, 1849 in the novel __Edger A. Poe, Mournful and Never-ending Remebrance.__ Poe seemed to Walker "rather the worse for wear" and "in great distress." Apparently he was drunked and may also have been ill from exposure. Poe managed to tell Walker that he knew Joseph Evans Snodgrass, the Baltimore editor and physician. When Snodgrass arrived at Gunner's Hall he found Poe dressed with no tie or vest, wearing dingy trousers and his shirt was crumpled, his cheap hat soiled. Snodgrass said that Poe must have been robbed or cheated of his own. Poe's uncle by marriage refused to take care of him and sugessted he send Poe to a hospital. Poe was driven to Washington Medical College, an impressive five-story building directed by an experienced medical staff. At five in the afternoon, Poe was given a private room and was attended by the resident physician, Dr. John J. Moran. Poe reached the hospital in a stupor, unaware of who or what had brought him there. He remained unconscious until three o'clock the next morning. His face was pale and he was drenched in sweat. Moran began questioning him about his family, where about did he live, or when he had left Richmond, but mostly his answers were incorrect. On Saturday evening on October 6 he began repeatedly calling out someone's name. "It may have been that of a Baltimore family named Reynolds or, more likely, the name of his uncle-in-law Henry Herring," quoted the author Silverman. Poe continued to say the name until three o'clock on Sunday morning. Then his condittion changed. Moran reported, "quietly moving his head he said 'Lord help my poor Soul' and expired!" The cause of Poe's death remains a mystery. Many people who ahve known Poe at this time say his death was to a lethal amount of acohol. Some Baltimore newspapers gave the cause of death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation." Moran claimed Poe's condition was a brain inflammation brought on by exposure. He died at the age of forty and "this death was almost a suicide," Charles Baudelaire remarked, "a suicide prepared for a long time." Dr. Moran seems to have made many of the funeral arrangements. the trunk brought to Richmond was lost. It contained a manuscript copy of his lecture, a packet of letters from Elmira Shelton, and several books, including copies of his own works marred with corrections and revisions for a new edition. Moran later claimed that he located the trunk at the hotel where Poe had been on Pratt Street. With little ceremony, Poe was buried on Monday afternoon, October 8, at about four o'clock. Henry Herring provided the mahogany coffin and Neilson Poe paid for the single carriage. Poe was put into lot 27, a family burying place near the graveyard. He was buried close to William Henry Leanard Poe and General David Poe.

Poe did not receive a proper funeral but, "On Sunday, October 11th, Poe's funeral will get an elaborate do-over, with two services expected to draw about 350 people each - the most a former church next to his grave can hold." This funeral is also in honor of his 200th birthday.