Site of Edgar Allan Poe's Death, 1849
100 North Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21231
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to view from the exterior; private residential building with no public interior access.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Sidewalk along North Broadway in East Baltimore.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1836 · Edgar Allan Poe Death Site · Antebellum Medical College · Civil War Hospital
The east building of the former Church Home and Hospital was constructed in 1836 to house the Washington Medical College. In 1857 it was purchased by the Church Home and Infirmary, an Episcopal Church charitable institution, which renamed itself Church Home and Hospital in 1943. The building treated Union troops in 1861 and remained an active hospital for 142 years before closing in 2000. Following its closure, the structure was converted to residential apartments in 2005.
Edgar Allan Poe died in this building on the morning of October 7, 1849, between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m. He had been found semiconscious in a Baltimore street gutter four days earlier and was admitted under the care of Dr. John J. Moran. Records of his stay describe fits of delirium and nonsensical ramblings during which he repeatedly called out the name Reynolds. His final reported words were: "Lord, help my poor Soul."
The contemporaneous medical records of Poe's hospitalization were lost or destroyed in the years that followed. The cause of death has been variously theorized as alcohol or drug intoxication, cholera, rabies, mercury poisoning, and syphilis; no theory has been confirmed.
A bronze plaque in the building's lobby records Poe's death on the property. The Maryland Historical Trust and the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore both maintain reference materials on the site, and a Baltimore historical marker stands nearby. The structure functions today as condominium housing under the name Tindeco Wharf and is not open to the public; visitors interested in Poe's Baltimore are routed instead to the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum on North Amity Street and to Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, where Poe is buried.
Sources
The folklore here is bound to one of the most famous unsolved deaths in American literature. Edgar Allan Poe was admitted to this building, then Washington University Hospital, on October 3, 1849. Over the next four days he moved between lucidity and delirium and called out a name no one could place. He died on the morning of October 7. His contemporaneous medical records were lost or destroyed in the years that followed.
The Shadowlands Haunted Places Index report attached to this site describes noises, objects moving, and doors opening within the structure. These reports are not corroborated in published Baltimore folklore, in the records of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, or in any newspaper account located during research. The building has been a private apartment complex since 2005, and no investigation team or paranormal television production has been documented as having worked there.
Visitors interested in the Poe story are directed to the documented sites elsewhere in Baltimore: the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum at 203 North Amity Street, where Poe lived in the early 1830s; Westminster Hall and Burying Ground at Fayette and Greene Streets, where he is buried beneath a memorial monument; and the historical marker outside the former hospital itself. The plaque in the building's lobby remains the most direct acknowledgement of the events of October 1849, and it is visible only to building residents and their guests.
Notable Entities
View the east building of the former Church Home and Hospital from the sidewalk. A bronze plaque in the building's lobby records the death of Edgar Allan Poe here on October 7, 1849. The structure has been a private residential development since 2005.
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