The brick home, then numbered 3 Amity St., and now numbered 203 North Amity Street, is assumed to have been built in 1830 and rented by Poe's aunt Maria Clemm in 1832. Clemm was joined in the home by her ailing mother, Elizabeth Cairnes Poe, and her daughter
Virginia Clemm. Edgar Allan Poe moved in with the family in 1833 The house was rented using
pension money that Elizabeth collected thanks to her husband, David Poe Sr., who was a veteran of the
American Revolutionary War. The home is small and Poe's room on the top floor has a ceiling with a sharp pitch which is six feet high at its tallest point. In the 1930s, homes in the area, including Poe's, were set for demolition to make room for the "Poe Homes"
public housing project. The house was saved by the efforts of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, which made arrangements with the city of Baltimore and opened the home as The Baltimore Poe House in 1949. Former displays in the museum included a lock of Poe's hair, a small piece of Poe's coffin, some original china that once belonged to John Allan (Poe's guardian after
Eliza Poe's death), and a large reproduction of the portrait of Virginia Clemm painted after her death as well as many other Poe-related images. An original 1849
obituary by Rufus Griswold in the October 24, 1849 edition of the
Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper was also displayed along with a reprint of Poe's original announcement for the creation of a new literary magazine to be called
The Stylus — an endeavor that never came to fruition. In 1979 during the house renovations, workers lifted the floorboards and found skeletal remains, reminiscent of Poe's story "
The Tell-Tale Heart." These were found to be animal bones discarded into what is known as a "trash pit" or
midden beneath the home. In the period from 1980 to 2011, the museum hosted a number of Poe events throughout the year. It claimed, for example, the largest Poe birthday celebration in the world held every January at the
Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, where Poe was buried following his death in October 1849. In 2009, the museum staged a third funeral for Poe (theatrical) for the Poe Bicentennial at Westminster Hall. Over 1,200 people attended two services. In 2011, City of Baltimore officials reduced the museum's subsidy, a decision that ultimately led to its closure in 2012. After the City cut off its $85,000 in annual support in 2011, the museum was operating on reserve funds to the amount of $380,000 in the Poe House Fundraising account. Efforts to secure the museum's future came from such diverse places as: the non-profit project Pennies For Poe: Save the Poe House in Baltimore , the New York City based non-profit theatre company Bedlam Ensemble's staging of
The Delirium of Edgar Allan Poe, and the 2012 film
The Raven. In 2012, According to the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, the museum was closed on September 28, 2012 with no advance public notice. Jeff Jerome, the museum's
curator for more than three decades, was laid off. In 2013 The Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum was re-opened to the public, under the auspices of Poe Baltimore, a non-profit organization created to operate and maintain the house museum (see next section.) New annual programs at Poe House include The International Edgar Allan Poe Festival and the Saturday 'Visiter' Awards. In 2020, Poe House was entered into the American Library Association's
United For Libraries Literary Landmarks Register. It was the first historical site in the State of Maryland to be entered in the list. The dedication ceremony was held at Poe House on the anniversary of Poe's birthday, January 19, 2020. ==Poe Baltimore==