Poe’s Mysterious Graveside Admirer Captured in Photo

A mysterious stranger who leaves three roses and a bottle of cognac on Edgar Allan Poe’s grave every year on the author’s birthday has been captured on film for Life magazine.

A New York photographer, armed with $17,000 worth of sophisticated equipment, took what apparently is the first photograph ever of the visitor to the West Baltimore grave. But the visitor’s identity still is not known.

The photo appears in Life magazine’s July issue, due on newsstands today.

Photographer Bill Ballenberg staked out the Westminster Burying Ground on Jan. 19, Poe’s 181st birthday, and snapped a fuzzy photo of a man in an overcoat crouched at the gravestone.

“It was hours and hours of boredom punctuated by less than a minute of sheer panic,” Ballenberg said.

Ballenberg had accompanied Life magazine writer Gary Smith to Baltimore to investigate the graveyard tradition, which dates at least to 1949 and doubtless has been carried out by more than one person.

Smith initially wanted to uncover the visitor’s identity.

But Smith said he was persuaded by Poe House curator Jeff Jerome not to disturb the visitor.

“It meant so much to him to not ruin the mystery. We decided to respect his wishes,” said Smith, who suggested the story to Life after seeing coverage of past graveyard visits.

Jerome said he agreed to let the Life team wait with him for the visitor this year, as long as they did not try to nab, identify or talk to the man. “That’s none of our business,” Jerome said.

Poe, whose most widely read poems and stories include “The Raven” and “The Pit and the Pendulum,” was found semiconscious on a Baltimore street Oct. 3, 1849, and died four days later.