Poe's Life in Boston

ANNIE RICHMOND (1820-1898)
A photograph taken in Lowell
circa 1878

After the death of his 24-year-old wife, Virginia Eliza Clemm, from tuberculosis in Fordham (in the Bronx), New York, on January 30, 1847, a grieving Poe eventually turned to lecturing. In July 1848, while speaking on "The Poets and Poetry of America," during the first of three known visits to Lowell, Mass., he met and fell in love with Mrs. Nancy Locke Heywood Richmond, the wife of Charles B. Richmond, a successful (and tolerant) paper manufacturer. While Poe's relationship with "Annie" (as he called her) probably remained platonic, it was nonetheless the most passionate and romantic experience of the final 15 months of his life. Annie traveled from Lowell to visit Poe and his mother-in-law, Muddy (Maria Clemm), in Fordham. She promised to visit him upon his deathbed (which purportedly led Poe to attempt suicide in a Boston hotel in November 1848). And as his final letters demonstrate, he longed to move close to her until the end. Shortly after Poe's death, Muddy did move to Lowell where she resided in Annie's home for about two years.

Courtesy of the University of Lowell