A True Story of Edgar Allan Poe and Baltimore
City Public Schools
by Fred B. Shoken
Have
you ever applied for a job and didn’t get it?
Did you wonder who got the job in your place? Did you ask WWPD (What Would Poe Do) if that
happened to him? This is a true story
about a job that Edgar Allan Poe wanted and didn’t get, and the story of the
person who got the job in Poe’s stead.
Help Wanted: Public School Teacher
Among the writings of Edgar Allan
Poe are two letters he sent to his friend and benefactor, John Pendleton
Kennedy, on March 15, 1835 (the Ides of March).
At the time, Poe was living in Baltimore with his aunt Maria Clemm and
cousin, soon to be his bride, Virginia Clemm.
Although he had won a $50 prize a year and a half earlier from the Baltimore Saturday Visiter for his short
story, MS. Found in a Bottle, he was barely eking out an existence. Kennedy was one of the judges that awarded
Poe the prize, and he took a keen interest in Poe’s budding writing
career. Yet, by 1835 Poe was in
desperate financial straits. Upon seeing
a newspaper advertisement, he wrote the following letter to Kennedy:
Sunday
—— 15th March
Dr Sir,
In the paper which
will be handed you with this note is an advertisement to which I most anxiously
solicit your attention. It relates to the appointment of a teacher in a Public
School, and I have marked it with a cross so that you may readily perceive it.
In my present circumstances such a situation would be most desirable, and if
your interest could obtain it for me I would always remember your kindness with
the deepest gratitude.
Have I any hope?
Your reply to this would greatly oblige. The 18th is fixed on for the decision
of the commissioners, and the advertisement has only this moment caught my eye.
This will excuse my obtruding the matter on your attention to day.
Very respy [Very respectfully]
E A Poe
Thanks
to research of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, we know more about
that job since they uncovered the following advertisement in the Baltimore Patriot of Thursday, March 12,
1835, page 3:
“A Teacher Wanted — At male Public
School No. 3 Aisquith St. The commissioners of Public Schools will appoint on
Wednesday next, the 18th inst. a Teacher to supply a vacancy which has occurred
at Male School No. 3. Satisfactory recommendations as to character, with
testimonials of capacity for conducting a School on the Monitorial System, will
be required. Salary one thousand dollars
per annum, payable quarterly. Applications addressed to the commissioners,
may be left with either of them or the Secretary, No. 8 Courtland Street [a
list of the commissioners then follows].”
While we do not have Kennedy’s
specific reply to Poe’s letter, it is obvious the he invited Poe to dinner to
discuss the matter. Poe sent a second
letter that day in reply to Kennedy revealing his desperate state:
Dr Sir,
Your kind
invitation to dinner today has wounded me to the quick. I cannot come — and for
reasons of the most humiliating nature in my personal appearance. You may
conceive my deep mortification in making this disclosure to you — but it was
necessary. If you will be my friend so
far as to loan me $20 I will call on you to morrow — otherwise it will be
impossible, and I must submit to my fate.
Sincerely, Yours
E A Poe
J. P. Kennedy Esqr
Sunday, 15th
Poe did not have proper clothing to
wear for a dinner invitation. After Poe
had won the short story prize by the Baltimore
Saturday Visiter, J H B Latrobe, another of the judges, describes Poe’s
attire on the one and only time he personally met him:
He was dressed in
black, and his frock-coat was buttoned to the throat, where it met the black
stock, then almost universally worn. Not
a particle of white was visible. Coat, hat,
boots and gloves had very evidently seen their best days, but so far as mending
and brushing go everything had been done, apparently, to make them
presentable. On most men his clothes
would have looked shabby and seedy, but there was something about this man that
prevented one from criticizing his garments …
With his prospects no better in
March 1835, it is likely that his attire was even worse than when described by
Latrobe a year and a half earlier. There
is no documentation on Kennedy’s reply to Poe’s second letter of March 15th,
but it is likely that he met with Poe the following day or soon after. Shortly after these events, Kennedy recommended
Poe for a job with the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. By August Poe was off to Richmond to start
his career as a paid writer, critic and assistant editor. In another letter to Kennedy in September,
Poe thanked him for his assistance in securing him employment:
Sep: 11th 1835
Dear Sir,
I received a letter yesterday from
Dr Miller in which he tells me you are in town. I hasten, therefore, to write
you — and express by letter what I have always found it impossible to express
orally — my deep sense of gratitude for your frequent and effectual assistance
and kindness. Through your influence Mr. White has been induced to employ me in
assisting him with the Editorial duties of his Magazine [the Southern Literary Messenger]
at a salary of $520 per annum. The situation is agreeable to me for many
reasons …
The above correspondence is known
to Poe scholars, but these documents don’t answer some key questions. Did Poe actually apply for a job as a teacher
with Baltimore City Public Schools? Would he have been a good candidate for the
job? What would have happened to him if
he had become a public school teacher?
Who got the job in his stead?
E. A. Poe: Teacher vs. Writer
Obviously Poe did not get the teaching
job. From the scant evidence available it
is doubtful he even submitted an application.
In his first letter of March 15th, he asks Kennedy to obtain
the job for him – not to write a letter of recommendation. While Kennedy would soon embark on a
political career, he was not on the Board of School Commissioners and there is
no evidence that he had the level of influence at the time to help Poe get the
job as a school teacher.
In his dire circumstances, a job
paying an annual salary of $1,000 would have been fantastic for Poe – after
all, he accepted a job that same year with the literary magazine in Richmond
for about half that amount. But, did Poe
have any hope of getting a teaching job with Baltimore Public Schools? He had no previous teaching experience, plus
Poe had dropped out of both the University of Virginia and West Point. His only steady job at that point in his life
was the time he served in the US Army.
While highly educated, what testimonial could he provide to the Board of
School Commissioners of his capacity for conducting a school as the
advertisement required?
Poe was a writer, not a
teacher. He would soon be known for his
caustic critiques of other writers in literary journals he edited. If employed as a teacher, could he resist
making similar comments on the work of young students under his charge? How would his macabre and fantastic
imagination played out in a classroom setting?
Considering the erratic behavior he displayed at times, did he have the
temperament to be a teacher of young children?
On the other hand, a teaching job could
have provided Poe with steady pay, allowing him to pursue his writing in a
level of comfort rather than despair. A
young Albert Einstein took a civil service job as a mundane patent examiner,
allowing him to pursue his scientific theories on his own time. Would a public school job have allowed Poe’s
genius to develop in relative comfort or would it have taken the edge off his
writings?
It is likely that Kennedy dissuaded
Poe from applying for the teaching position and instead helped him to find a
job in the literary world to further his writing career. In order for Poe to advance his career he
needed to be in contact with other writers, editors and publishers and to
become acquainted with key players in the literary field. Spending his days with school children would
provide him with a comfortable livelihood, but do nothing for his career as a
writer. If that meant leaving Baltimore
for Richmond, so be it.
The Job Left
Behind: Baltimore Public Schools in 1835
In 1835, the job of a school
teacher in Baltimore Public Schools was quite rare. The city’s public school system was only six
years old at the time. There were only
eight schools – four for boys and four for girls. Baltimore Public Schools had a total of eight
teachers, one for each school.
The Seventh Annual Report of the
Commissioners of Public Schools covering the year 1835 describes what happened
to the job that Poe was seeking:
In male school No.
3, Mr. Carter, a gentleman whose credentials in reference to moral worth and
scholastic attainments, were such as to cause him to be selected to succeed Mr.
Roszel, presides in a manner which must ensure to him the continued esteem of the
commissioners, as well as of the parents whose offspring are under his care,
and constitute him a worthy successor to Mr. Roszel, whose professional views
had deprived the friends of public education of his valuable services.
So who was this Mr. Carter who was
hired to fill the teaching vacancy? The
only clue in school annual reports is an accounting chart which shows quarterly
payments of $250 to J. P. Carter at M. N. 3 [Male school No. 3]. In the school report for the following year,
teachers described what instructions they provided their students. Mr. Carter provided a plan of instruction
which included: reading, writing,
arithmetic, geography and grammar, as well as geometry, philosophy, algebra and
book keeping for more advanced boys.
There were a total of 88 students on his roll, the smallest number for a
boys schools in the city, probably because the opening of McKim’s Free School
in the immediate neighborhood drew away some of his students.
Mr. Carter’s career as a Baltimore
City Public School teacher would not last long, the following statement can be
found in the school annual report covering the year 1837:
In consequence of
the resignation of Mr. Carter, as teacher of male school No. 3, it became
necessary to make a new appointment, which was done by electing Mr. R. Connolly
to fill the vacancy occasioned by Mr. Carter’s resignation.
So J.
P. Carter who got the teaching job that Poe desired only stayed in that
position for two years, not much longer than the amount of time that Poe remained
with the Southern Literary Messenger in
Richmond.
By 1837 Poe had married
Virginia, resigned from his job and moved to New York to seek his literary
fortune. After completing a single novel,
Poe moved to Philadelphia in 1838 still in dire financial straits. J. P. Carter, on the other hand, had found a
higher calling.
John P. Carter, Clergyman
and Educator
Bernard C. Steiner’s “History of
Education in Maryland” written in 1894 provides additional biographical
information on Mr. Carter. In 1834
Franklin College was chartered in Baltimore County, but it was never organized
due to a lack of funding. The college
was an outgrowth of a school started in the town of Franklin by John P. Carter
in the early 1830s.
According to Steiner's history and newspaper accounts, Carter was born in Plymouth,
England in 1811 (two years after Poe was born in Boston). He came to the United States as a young child
with his parents (around the same time that Poe moved with his foster parents
to England for his early education).
Carter’s family settled in Washington, DC, and he was educated at the
Washington Catholic Seminary, a branch of Georgetown College. At the age of 21 he married Martha Webb of
Baltimore. He was already an experienced
teacher, but when his plans to open Franklin College did not materialize, he
accepted the position of teacher (some sources state principal) of Male School
No. 3 in Baltimore. He also worked with
older students after school hours since there was no high school at the time in
Baltimore. Steiner credits Carter’s work
with higher education at Male School Number 3 with the beginning of Baltimore
City College.
While serving as a teacher, Carter also
studied for the ministry with Reverend Robert J. Breckinridge of Second
Presbyterian Church at Baltimore and Lloyd Street (located near to Male School
Number 3 on Aisquith Street). Upon
completing his studies, he was ordained a pastor. He left Baltimore City Public Schools to
become a pastor in Taneytown and New Windsor where he established an academy
that grew into New Windsor College. Carter
later worked as a general agent and corresponding secretary for the Maryland
Bible Society. He also became a
principal of schools in Ellicott City and Hagerstown.
In 1857, John P. Carter was
installed as the first President of the Ashmun Institute, the first college for
African Americans in the United States, better known today as Lincoln
University. Lincoln would become famous
for educating future civil rights leaders and luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance, such as Thurgood Marshall and Langston Hughes. When founded prior to the Civil War, Carter
was the sole teacher of the first four students enrolled at the school – where
three went on to missionary work in Africa.
At a time when slavery was a major political issue dividing the country,
Ashmun Institute walked a fine line of providing higher education for African
Americans, but taking no stand on the issue of slavery.
During his installation address Carter stated,
“It is not, therefore, our purpose … to preach a crusade against the
institution of domestic Slavery, as it exists at the South; nor to render this
establishment a hotbed of fanaticism, to cultivate the passions of one race of
men against another; but … to promote between the two races, every feeling of
kindness and respect, we shall sedulously guard against offending a single
prejudice which keeps those races distinct.” Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Carter
left his position at the college and returned to Baltimore to start a girl’s
school, the Maryland Collegiate Institute, where he stayed until 1869.
At that time he retired from
teaching, but continued his work with the Baltimore Presbytery serving in an
administrative position, Stated Clerk, for nearly two decades. The Reverend Doctor Carter also published
several educational text books including, “The Elements of General History” in
1871. Carter lived twice as long as
Poe. He died in Washington DC in 1892 at
the residence of his son-in-law. He left
behind several children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He is
buried at Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore.
Poe and Baltimore
City Public Schools
When Poe wrote to Kennedy in 1835
about the teaching job with Baltimore City Public Schools, he asked, “Have I
any hope?” Considering John P. Carter’s
qualifications at the time, as well as his academic accomplishments long after
Poe died, the answer is a resounding no.
Poe had no chance beating out Carter for that job.
Kennedy did the right thing to help
Poe secure employment in literary circles rather than as a school teacher. Yet, due to his own eccentricities, Poe would
never hold a steady job. He would work
for a few literary journals and make enough money to survive through his
writings and lectures, but he never earned a comfortable living. Poe would gain scant praise and accolades
during his life for some of his poetry, most notably, The Raven, and a few of
his short stories. After his death, he
would be lauded as a literary genius, the inventor of the modern detective
story and the emerging genre of science fiction. His tales of macabre and horror, The Black
Cat, Tell Tale Heart, Cask of Amontillado and Pit and the Pendulum are among
the best know short stories of their kind.
When Poe died in Baltimore in 1849,
he was buried in a family plot in the rear of Westminster Cemetery. He grave was unmarked. Strangely enough, it was Baltimore Public
School teachers that came to his rescue.
Led by Sara Sigourney Rice, a teacher at Western High School, the Public
School Teachers Association, organized efforts to provide for a memorial to
mark Poe’s grave. She and other teachers
encouraged public school students to contribute “pennies for Poe” in a fund
raising campaign. In 1875, Poe’s remains were removed to a more prominent
location in the cemetery and a proper monument was placed at his grave. The Baltimore City Public Elementary School
located directly across the street from his resting place was named the Edgar
Allan Poe School in his honor (although the building was last used as a high
school for unwed mothers before being renovated into the headquarters of the
Baltimore Bar Association). A plaque
honoring Poe was placed at the building.
Did Poe know who got the job he
sought in 1835? Like many things about
Poe in Baltimore, that remains a mystery.
Poe had not left for Richmond until the summer of 1835, after Carter had
already begun his teaching assignment.
While Poe lived on the western outskirts of the city, he was familiar
with the neighborhood where Male School Number 3 was located, having previously
lived in the vicinity of Eastern Avenue and Central Avenue prior to moving to
Amity Street. Unfortunately, we will
never know if Poe ever encountered Carter.
However, it is an interesting
curiosity that the middle name of the Reverend Doctor John P. Carter, happened to
be Pym. Poe’s only novel published in
1838 was the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, a character Poe subjected to ship
wrecks, mutinies and a series of horrors on both land and the high seas. Perhaps Poe did take his revenge on John Pym
Carter albeit in a work of fiction.
Nemo
me impune lacessit -- the motto of
Montresor in The Cask of Amontillado
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