When starting my "One Edgar Allan Poe Short Story a Day Throughout October" series I hadn't realized that today is actually the 171st anniversary of the writer's very murky death. 10 years ago I noted the stoppage of a decades-long tradition of a mysterious stranger leaving roses and Cognac on his grave.
Turns out this tradition was given a name, a "Poe Toaster":
Poe died at the age of 40 in Baltimore on October 7, 1849, under mysterious circumstances. The Poe Toaster tradition may have begun as early as the 1930s, according to witnesses, and continued annually until 2009. Each year, in the early hours of the morning of January 19 (Poe's birthday), a black-clad figure carrying a silver-tipped cane, his face obscured by a scarf or hood, entered the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore. At the site of Poe's original grave—which is marked with a commemorative stone—he would pour a glass of Martell cognac and raise a toast. He then arranged three red roses on the monument in a distinctive configuration and departed, leaving the unfinished bottle of cognac.
I don't know where the toast part comes from, as nobody leaves toast on the grave. Ba-dum-bump.
Anyhoo, after a 5-year hiatus the whacky state of Maryland decided to keep the tradition going in 2016 by designating a new Poe Toaster every year, one who would performs the traditional duties while staying "anonymous." Of course like idiots they had this performed in broad daylight, which is idiotic since as we all know I have decree-th how rare it is for anything to actually be scary in daylight.
So pour out a bit of Cognac today for one of the all-time greats...and as Boycie from Only Fools and Horses would say, "mine's a large one!"
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