He had spent years crafting a careful image of a man inspired by adventure and fascinated with enigmas-a poet, a detective, an author, a world traveler who fought in the Greek War of Independence and was held prisoner in Russia. Poe's death-shrouded in mystery-seems ripped directly from the pages of one of his own works. Moran, Poe repeatedly called out for " Reynolds"-a figure who, to this day, remains a mystery. The night before his death, according to his attending physician John J. Instead, Poe spent his final days wavering between fits of delirium, gripped by visual hallucinations. Poe was never to leave Baltimore, where he launched his career in the early 19th century, again-and in the four days between Walker finding Poe outside the public house and Poe's death on October 7, he never regained enough consciousness to explain how he had come to be found, in soiled clothes not his own, incoherent on the streets. Nor did he ever make it back to New York, where he had been living, to escort his aunt back to Richmond for his impending wedding. Poe never made it to Philadelphia to attend to his editing business. When Walker found Poe in delirious disarray outside of the polling place, it was the first anyone had heard or seen of the poet since his departure from Richmond. Leon Loud, a minor figure in American poetry at the time. On September 27-almost a week earlier-Poe had left Richmond, Virginia, bound for Philadelphia to edit a collection of poems for Marguerite St. Poe, and who appears in great distress, & he says he is acquainted with you, he is in need of immediate assistance. There is a gentleman, rather the worse for wear, at Ryan's 4th ward polls, who goes under the cognomen of Edgar A. Immediately, Walker wrote Snodgrass a letter asking for help: Snodgrass, a magazine editor with some medical training. Worried about the health of the addled poet, Walker stopped and asked Poe if he had any acquaintances in Baltimore who might be able to help him. The man was semi-conscious and unable to move, but as Walker approached him, he discovered something unexpected: The man was Edgar Allan Poe.
When Walker arrived at Gunner's Hall, he found a man, delirious and dressed in shabby secondhand clothes, lying in the gutter. It was Election Day, and Gunner's Hall served as a pop-up polling location for the 4th Ward polls. Walker, a compositor for the Baltimore Sun, from heading out to Gunner's Hall, a public house bustling with activity. It was raining in Baltimore on October 3, 1849, but that didn't stop Joseph W.
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