Edgar Allan Poe and the Jesuits

Back in the 1840’s, when the Bronx was considered “country,” Edgar Allan Poe brought his young wife Virginia to live in a cottage in the Fordham section of the Bronx. She had been diagnosed with tuberculosis, and doctors suggested that the Bronx country air might aid her health. After Virginia’s death in 1847, Poe stayed at the cottage. Not far away was the recently founded St. John’s College. Since 1846 the college had been staffed by Jesuits, most of whom were French (a language Poe spoke fluently). Poe became a regular visitor to the Jesuit community there. On many an evening, he talked literature with the Jesuits, borrowed books from their library, played cards with them, and often had a cordial glass of wine. Poe told a friend that he liked the Jesuits because they were perfect gentlemen; “they drank, smoked, played cards, and never discussed religion” with him. An alcoholic who suffered from depression, Poe found a special comfort in the companionship of the Jesuits. One of them, French-born Edward Doucet (seen above), became a special confidant to the writer, an unofficial confessor, to whom Poe unburdened himself in French. On many a night, when Poe had had too much to drink at the college, Doucet would walk him home. Fordham lore has it that Poe’s poem “The Bells” was named for the church bells on the college campus. (Scholars have since shown that there were several other candidates for that role.) Shortly before his death, Poe moved away from the Bronx to Baltimore, where he died on this day in 1849.