Episode 80: The Poe House
In the house on Amity Street, the ghost stories quite literally write themselves…
Episode Transcript
If there is anything you all should know about me, it’s that my two greatest loves are storytelling and horror content. Okay, that much is probably fairly obvious, given that this podcast combines both of those passions into one overarching labor of love. But hey, it’s worth mentioning that writing and telling ghost stories has been a constant theme throughout my adult life.
Now I’m sure that many of you share these interests. That you, like myself, love telling ghost stories just as much as you love hearing them. Although, I’m sure we can all agree that this passion we share isn’t all that common or socially accepted in the grand scheme of things.
I mean, think about it, everybody loves a good ghost story. But it’s a special kind of person who loves them to the point of welcoming them to haunt the cobweb-encrusted corners of their minds. That much has been true since man first sat around a blazing fire and spoke of fables from far-off realms.
Sure, there’ve probably always been writers with an affinity for the uninviting, and there probably always will be authors with a morbid interest in the macabre. But it seems to me that, even as they are writing the next great American ghost story, these storytellers only ever find popularity once they themselves have met their own bitter ends.
It’s that sobering thought that brings us to the subject of today’s discussion: a storyteller who could almost always be found writing prose of paranormal proportions—oh, and apparently he has returned to inspire similar stories from the other side.
So, it seems he truly was an author ahead of his time. After all, it was he who first put this thought to paper: "the boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague."
I’m Courtney Hayes, and you’re listening to Haunts. Stay tuned…
There’s a tiny brick house sitting on North Amity Street in Baltimore, Maryland, where, if you can believe it, the modern genres of science fiction, mystery, and horror first made their humble beginnings.
It’s sort of kismet when you think about it. That this house sits on a street that shares the name of one of the most haunting stories the state of New York has ever seen. Because for a few years there in the 1830s, a burgeoning writer by the name of E.A. Poe wrote tales from this modest dwelling that would give the Amityville house a run for its money.
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It was actually October of 1833 when Poe struck an unexpected friendship with John P. Kennedy. As a fellow writer and novelist, the pair really hit it off. Well, at least they did at first. Which is why Kennedy recommended Poe for a job as the assistant editor of Baltimore’s Southern Literary Messenger.
Now I won’t lie, over the years Kennedy and Poe drifted apart, both harboring a certain level of resentment for the other. But it was this circumstantial, if unlikely, friendship that brought Poe to Baltimore and that little house on North Amity Street.
Of course, Poe only stayed with the Messenger and in Maryland for a few short years—ultimately moving to Virginia in 1835. Although it’s said that he remained quite fond of Baltimore until his own rather mysterious death in 1849.
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Today, that tiny brick house has been transformed into a museum that honors the memory of Edgar Allan Poe. And true to his nature, or perhaps as a testament to his love for the city of Baltimore, they say that this museum is still at least a part-time residence of the father of modern horror.
Thanks to his renowned short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher," many credit Poe with the creation of the modern-day haunted house. The image of a gothic-style mansion, looming ominously behind a thicket of decaying trees, was Poe’s creation with pen to paper.
So I guess it really only makes sense that this little house on Amity Street would fit into a similar mold. No, it’s not known for its gothic-style architecture, nor does it feel ominous when you look up at it from the sidewalk.
But all the same, they say that this museum exhibits the residue of the dead. That it’s retelling stories from its chapter serving as the home of one of horror’s most prolific authors. Meaning that, in the case of this particular haunt, the ghost stories quite literally write themselves.
Take the following legend, for example. So they say, the Edgar Allan Poe House is haunted by a dark shadow. One that, come to think of it, might have fit in well in the House of Usher. Harboring a gloomy sort of aura, it is thought that this spectral mist is that of none other than Poe himself.
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Now I have to be honest here. This claim does feel a bit hard to believe. Mainly because I’ve heard of several different haunts that tout Edgar Allan Poe as their resident ghost. And for what it’s worth, each of those locations played an instrumental role during the author’s life.
Still, there are a handful of paranormal investigators and researchers, myself included, who believe spirits aren’t necessarily tied to one specific location. That they instead can, for lack of better words, travel between different points in time and space. Whether that be via a portal or some sort of nexus point between our physical reality and what lies beyond.
I mean, it could even be as simple as having an extreme attachment to an object that a spirit might follow as it moves from one place to another. Which brings me to my next point.
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Apparently, at some point during the early 20th century, the museum acquired a sizable collection of Poe memorabilia. And it was shortly thereafter that curators and guests began to notice this haunting shadow looming about in various parts of the house.
Beyond that, it seemed to have a keen interest in two of the artifacts acquired alongside this collection of Poe’s belongings. The first being the author’s own walking stick and the second being a mirror that once belonged to his wife, Virginia.
Now to me, with that last little detail in mind, this haunting starts to make a bit more sense. I mean, if spirits truly can travel between locations—either by following a beloved item or by stepping through a portal embedded in… I don’t know, a mirror? Then it only makes sense for the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe to use one that belonged to the woman he thought of as his muse.
Beyond the shadow of the man who used to be Edgar Allan Poe, the house on Amity Street is said to be home to three additional spirits. The likes of which seem to have inspired the work of another popular horror writer.
Two of the ghosts haunting the museum, for instance, are those of two school-aged children. They are described as blonde twins who are believed to be the descendants of the Ege Family. It was their relative, Jacob Ege, who actually built the home for his wife in 1740.
Now according to those who have encountered them, these twin ghosts aren’t the mischievous type, as you might expect. In fact, they mostly just appear in the background of photographs.
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Okay, so that’s creepy enough as it is. I mean, imagine visiting a museum that’s dedicated to the father of modern horror and snapping several photos with your tour group only to discover two faces you don’t recognize have joined in on the fun.
You’ve got to admit, the scenario is spooky. But far be it from the vision of another set of twins written into the story of a haunted hotel that’s been isolated in the snow-capped Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
Of course, there’s no way for us to know for certain that Stephen King pulled any kind of inspiration from the house on Amity Street when he was first drafting out "The Shining." But I have to say this haunting does at the very least remind me of Lisa and Louise Burns. And being that the Ege twins have appeared in countless photographs, I can’t help but feel like they’re inviting museum guests to play with them, forever and ever and ever.
Now, if you’ve been researching the paranormal a while, you’ve probably been exposed to, let’s call it, a colorful array of ghostly women. There’s the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, for instance. Then there’s the Lady in Blue of South Texas. And in the case of the house on Amity Street, there’s the Lady in Gray.
According to a handful of sightings, this Gray Lady is responsible for a myriad of paranormal happenings there in the Baltimore Poe Museum. Specifically, museum guests have cited being touched by a pair of phantom hands, claiming that the encounter was followed by an extreme drop in temperature.
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Okay, so I know what many of you are probably thinking. It’s an old house—there are bound to be drafty spots here and there, right? Well, I thought the same thing, but that doesn’t exactly discredit the following encounter.
As any good museum does, there is a gift shop in the house on Amity. Of course, they sell a variety of Poe-themed knick-knacks and souvenirs, including bobbleheads made in the author’s image.
Now on the occasion in question, the gift shop received a box of these bobbleheads to add to their inventory. And this sealed box was left in the museum overnight to be unpacked and scanned into the system the following day.
So I’m sure you can imagine their surprise when museum staff came into work the following morning only to find that the box had already been unpacked. Even stranger was that the motion-sensing alarms were never triggered—indicating that something otherworldly had transpired. Almost as if the box had been unpacked by a pair of phantom hands.
Okay, so by now I think it’s pretty obvious that many a ghost story could be written about the house on North Amity Street. And that, of course, means that it’s all the more fascinating for us paranormal investigators. So I’m sure that many of you are wondering how to visit this haunt for yourself.
Well, if you’re in the Baltimore area, the museum is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time. And tickets start at just $10.
But in the event that you can’t make the trip in person, never fear. Because as it turns out, virtual tours are available for free on the Poe Museum website, which I’ll have linked down in the show notes.
So if you’re feeling brave enough, a walk-through of the infamous Edgar Allan Poe house, whether virtual or otherwise, may just be in order. Oh, and while you’re there, keep your eyes peeled for any shadows lurking in the corner as well as any ghostly faces dancing across the screen. After all, it would be here, in this little brick house on North Amity Street, that the next great American ghost story would be written, this time starring one of the most iconic authors the horror genre has ever seen.
Sources
https://usghostadventures.com/haunted-stories/the-ghost-of-edgar-allan-poe/
https://tourbaltimoreghosts.com/edgar-allan-poe-house-and-museum/
https://www.poeinbaltimore.org
https://www.poeinbaltimore.org/experience/poe-history-in-baltimore/
https://www.eapoe.org/people/kennedjp.htm
https://medium.com/@spencerbaum/edgar-allan-poe-and-the-invention-of-the-haunted-house-80d0161fdb9e
https://rvaghosts.com/the-edgar-allen-poe-museum-haunted-evermore/
https://timscullion.wordpress.com/2019/03/09/edgar-allan-poe-museum-a-shadow-of-his-former-self/