Westminster Hall and Poe's Grave

Edgar Allan Poe is buried in the graveyard of Westminster Hall, a 19th-century church in west Baltimore whose catacombs were built around an existing cemetery. The original grave, where Poe was first interred in 1849, is in the back of the churchyard; a more prominent monument at the front entrance was added later after public campaigns argued that the original site was insufficiently dignified.

The graveyard is freely accessible and the Poe monument is clearly signed. The church interior can be visited on certain days and contains interesting historic elements. Combined with the Poe House two blocks away, this forms the core of a Poe pilgrimage through west Baltimore — a part of the city most visitors never reach.

things to do sight
A story
For over a century, an anonymous figure known as the "Poe Toaster" visited Poe's grave at midnight every January 19th (Poe's birthday), leaving three red roses and a bottle of cognac. The practice began sometime in the 1940s, continued reliably until 2009, and then stopped. The identity of the Toaster was never confirmed, and the mystery of who they were and why they stopped is now part of Baltimore's Poe mythology.