Elmira Shelton House - 1844 & 1957 - Richmond, VA - Dated Architectural Structures Multifarious on Waymarking.com

Taken from the website, "Built in 1844, this was the home of the woman to whom Poe was engaged both when he was seventeen and when he was forty. Their first engagement was broken off by her father while Poe was at college. Mr. Royster intercepted and destroyed Poe’s letters to her and convinced Elmira that Poe had forgotten about her. Elmira soon engaged herself to Alexander Barrett Shelton. After Shelton’s early death, Elmira rented this house on Church Hill across Grace Street from Saint John’s Church. Her brothers also lived nearby on Grace Street. When Poe returned to Richmond in 1849, he began to visit Shelton regularly, much to the disapproval of her brothers. Even her children apparently did not care for Poe and begged her not to marry him. By the end of September, Elmira had agreed to marry Poe, and he had set the date for October 17, after his return from a business trip to Philadelphia. Poe never reached Philadelphia but died in Baltimore ten days before the wedding would have taken place. Rumors soon began to circulate that Mrs. Shelton’s brothers had beaten Poe and that his injuries had caused his early death. Although a similar appeared in the United States Magazine in 1857, the theory was never widely accepted, and the cause of Poe’s death remains a mystery. The newspapers at the time attributed it to “congestion of the brain.”

Year built or dedicated as indicated on the structure or plaque: 1844 & 1957 Full Inscription (unless noted above): Historic Building Elmira Shelton House Elmira Shelton House Purchased for Historica Richmond Foundation By The Association for the preservation of Virginia Antiques 1957 Website (if available): [Web Link]

Visit Instructions:


Any log as a visit to a waymark will require a picture as proof that the person visited a particular dated architectural structure. Any posted visits not containing a picture in the log will risk being being deleted.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log   11/01/2014 bluesnote visited it