Man Reveals Legend of Mystery Visitor to Edgar Allan Poe's Grave
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Published on FoxNews.com
BALTIMORE — The
legend was almost too good to be true.
For decades, a mysterious figure dressed in black, his features cloaked by a wide-brimmed hat and scarf,
crept into a churchyard to lay three roses and a bottle of cognac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.
Now, a 92-year-old man who led the fight to preserve the historic site says the visitor was his creation.
"We did it, myself and my tour guides," said Sam Porpora. "It was a promotional idea. We made it up,
never dreaming it would go worldwide."
Porpora is an energetic, dapper fellow in a newsboy cap and a checked suit with a bolo tie. He's got a
twinkle in his eye and a mischievous smile, and he tells his tale in the rhythms of a natural-born storyteller.
No one has ever claimed ownership of the legend. So why is Porpora coming forward now?
"I really can't tell you," Porpora answered. "I love Poe. I love talking about Poe. I had a lot to do with
making Poe a universal figure. I'm doing it because of my love for the story."
Porpora's belief that he resurrected the international fame of Poe, that master of mystery and melancholia,
is questioned by some Poe scholars. But they do credit Porpora, a former advertising executive, with
rescuing the cemetery at Westminster Presbyterian Church where the writer is buried.
"I don't know what to say," said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House in Baltimore, who has nurtured for
years the legend of the so-called Poe Toaster. Confronted with Porpora's assertion that the whole thing is
a hoax, Jerome reacted like a man who's been punched in the stomach by his beloved grandfather. He's
sad. He feels betrayed. But he's reluctant to punch back.
"He's like a mentor to me," Jerome said of Porpora. "And I can tell you that if it weren't for him,
Westminster Hall may not be there. But to say the toaster is a promotional hoax, well, all I can say is that's
just not so."
Could it be, to quote Poe, that "all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream"?
Porpora's story begins in the late 1960s. He'd just been made historian of the Westminster Presbyterian
Church, built in 1852. There were fewer than 60 congregants and Porpora, in his 60s, was one of the
youngest. The overgrown cemetery was a favorite of drunken derelicts.
The site needed money and publicity, Porpora recalled. That, he said, is when the idea of the Poe toaster
came to him. The story, as Porpora told it to a local reporter then, was that the tribute had been laid at the
grave on Poe's Jan. 19 birthday every year since 1949. Three roses — one for Poe, one for his wife, and
one for his mother-in-law — and a bottle of cognac, because Poe loved the stuff even though he couldn't
afford to drink it unless someone else was buying.
The romantic image of the mysterious man in black caught the fancy of Poe fans and a tradition grew.
In about 1977, Jerome began inviting a handful of people each year to a vigil for the mysterious stranger.
The media began chronicling the arrivals and departures of a "Poe-like figure." In 1990, Life magazine
published a picture of the shrouded individual. In 1993, he left a note saying "the torch would be passed."
Another note in 1998 announced that the originator of the tradition had died. Later vigil-keepers reported
that at least two toasters appeared to have taken up the torch in different years.
For Jeffrey A. Savoye, secretary-treasurer of the E.A. Poe Society of Baltimore, the tradition acquired a
life of its own.
"Even if Sam's story is true, so what? It's a tradition. It's a nice tradition, whether it dates back to 1949 or
the '70s," Savoye said.
Members of the Poe Society insist they recall members of the old congregation — all now dead — talking
about the Poe toaster before Porpora says he made it up. Stories since the 1970s refer to older
newspaper accounts about the visitor. Jerome found a 1950 newspaper clipping from The (Baltimore)
Evening Sun that mentions "an anonymous citizen who creeps in annually to place an empty bottle (of
excellent label)" against the gravestone.
Porpora's account isn't consistent. He said he invented the stranger in an interview with a reporter in
1967, but the story to which he refers appeared in 1976. Shortly afterward, the vigils and the yearly
chronicles of the stranger's visits began. During the same interview, Porpora said both that he made the
story up and that one of his tour guides went through a pantomime of dressing up, sneaking into the
cemetery and laying the tribute on the grave.
Porpora acknowledges that someone has since "become" the Poe toaster.
"For us, it was a one-time thing. If I could have brought Edgar Allen Poe back to life, I would have — that
would have been the biggest promotion of all," he said. "But who would have thought people would jump
on it the way they did?"
Jerome said the vigils will continue.
"Next January 19, I'm going to keep the vigil — same as I've always done," he said. "Either he shows or
he doesn't show. Either others join me or they don't. My guess is, this will not affect anything."
Mysterious visitor to Edgar Allen Poe's grave disappears
A mysterious visitor who each year leaves roses and cognac on Edgar Allen Poe's tomb in Baltimore,
Maryland, has missed his rendezvous for the first time in 61 years, the Poe Society has said.
Published: 2:30AM GMT 20 Jan 2010 on Telegraph.co.uk
Edgar Allan Poe Photo: AP
"He did not show up this morning," Jeffrey Savoye, secretary and treasurer of the 380-member society, said.
Each year since 1949, the 100th anniversary of Poe's birth, a individual, often wearing a cloak, left a bottle of
cognac and a few roses at the foot of Poe's tomb, usually at night, in tribute to the legendary poet.
"Occasionally he showed up early, like 11:00-11:30 the evening before. But normally it's from midnight to 5:00
am," Mr Savoye said.
About 50 people waited in vain from Tuesday night to watch the "Poe Toaster," as the visitor has been dubbed.
Many had travelled from across the United States for the 201st anniversary of Poe's birth.
"As far as we know, they have not missed a year until now," Mr Savoye said of the Poe Toaster.
The original yearly visitor apparently died in 1998, but left the pilgrimage up to his two sons.
"We were left a note some years ago saying that the original toaster had died... We interpreted the message that
the torch will be passed... We are assuming that two sons of this person have been carrying it on," he said.
"We don't know who they are."
The visitor's absence this year only deepened the mystery over his identity. One name mentioned as a
possibility was that of a Baltimore poet and known prankster who died in his 60s last week. But there is little or
no evidence to suggest he was the man.
There is an alternative tale of the toaster's origins, one that the Poe Society vehemently disputes.
Sam Porpora, the former historian at Westminster Hall, claimed in 2007 that he was the original Poe toaster,
saying he came up with the idea in the late 1960s as a publicity stunt. But the details of Porpora's story seemed
to change with each telling, and he acknowledged that someone had since made the tradition his own.
In 2001, as the Baltimore Ravens – named in honor of the bird in Poe's most famous poem – were preparing to
face the New York Giants in the Super Bowl, the toaster left a note that praised the Giants and said the Ravens
would suffer "a thousand injuries." Then in 2004, amid tense relations between the United States and France
over the invasion of Iraq, a note said Poe's grave was "no place for French cognac" and that the liquor was being
left "with great reluctance."
Poe was the American literary master of the macabre, known for poems such as "The Raven" and grisly short
stories like "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Pit and the Pendulum." He is also
credited with writing the first modern detective story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." He died in 1849 in
Baltimore at age 40 after collapsing in a tavern.