Poe's Life in Boston

62 CARVER STREET
The Boston Birthplace of Edgar Allan Poe

On the morning of January 19, 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was born in this boardinghouse on Carver Street (now Charles Street South) approximately 220 yards south of Boylston Street (then called Frog Lane). The building was owned by a stucco worker named Henry Haviland (and later by his wife Hannah) who constructed it after purchasing a parcel of land from a Boston distiller named John Haskins on May 16, 1801, for four annual payments totaling $520. The Poe birthplace used to abut the still-existing 60 Charles Street South (left), but number 62 was razed after being acquired by Boston Edison in 1959. The site is now part of an expanded parking lot for the electric power plant at 70-74 Charles Street South next to the Milner Hotel. This photograph was taken on August 17, 1954.

The Raymond Biswanger Slide Collection of Literary Landscapes at the University of Pennsylvania