Edgar Allan Poe Museum

The Edgar Allan Poe Museum is a museum located in the Shockoe Bottom neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia, dedicated to American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Though Poe never lived in the building, it serves to commemorate his time living in Richmond. The museum holds one of the world's largest collections of original manuscripts, letters, first editions, memorabilia and personal belongings. The museum also provides an overview of early 19th century Richmond, where Poe lived and worked. The museum features the life and career of Edgar Allan Poe by documenting his accomplishments with pictures, relics, and verse, and focusing on his many years in Richmond.Old Stone HouseThe Museum is housed in the "Old Stone House", built circa 1740 and cited as the oldest original building in Richmond. It was built by Jacob Ege, who immigrated from Germany to Philadelphia in 1738 and came to the James River Settlements and Col. Wm. Byrd's land grant (now known as Richmond) in the company of the family of his fiancée, Maria Dorothea Scheerer, whom he later married; the house was a "Home for the Bride." (One of Jacob's nephews, George Ege, was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Berks County, Pennsylvania.) Dendrochronology suggests that additional construction on the house occurred in 1754. Jacob Ege died in 1762. Samuel Ege, the son of Jacob and a Richmond flour inspector, owned the house in 1782 when it first appeared on a tax register.In 1824, when the Marquis de Lafayette revisited Richmond, a volunteer company of young Richmonders, the Junior Morgan Riflemen, rode in procession along Lafayette's carriage. One of the riflemen, the then 15-year-old Edgar Allan Poe, stood as honorguard outside the Ege house as Lafayette visited its inhabitants. The house remained in possession of the Ege family until 1911.