The_Poe_House

The Poe house describes late 19th and early 20th century culture, family and social history. The Poe House was built in 1896 by Ruffin Vaughn, a noted architect for Mr. Poe. This house is on the Hay Street downtown. The land which the house was built on was part of the U.S. Arsenal destroyed by General Sherman during his march at the end of the civil war. The house was later sold to Josephine Poe in 1897 and moved in with her family the same year. The absolute location of the house is 35 °N and 78°W and relative location is that it is near the Market House. Josephine Poe, from Wake County, was the wife of Edgar Allan Poe. There has been a lot of confusion with the writer Edgar Allan Poe, but E.A. Poe was a successful business man, a civic leader, and politician. He owned a brickyard which supplied the bricks to number of buildings in town, some of which are still standing today. Even though Mr. Poe made houses of bricks, his house is made of wood. The two story house includes: a barn, woodhouse, smokehouse, and a well house. The house also has Eastlake detailing, an entrance bay, exterior work, a wrap-around porch, tongue-and-groove wall and bull’s-eye decoration throughout the inside. There are a number of things inside the home that are original to the family and the house. Some of items in the house are representative to the year 1897 to 1917, a period of tremendous change in America like: the combination of gas, electric light equipments found throughout the house. Furniture items include the piano and stool in the parlor; the sofa, chairs, and secretary in the sitting room: the sewing machine in the master bedroom; and the dining room table, chairs, and sideboard. There are number of smaller pieces throughout the house. There is also an original writing sample from one of the daughters. There are also a number of oil paintings in the house that were painted by Elizabeth Winslow Poe, Mr. and Mrs. Poe’s daughter, in her college days (1910-1912). “Lillie”, Mr. and Mrs. Poe’s daughter, sold the house to the state in 1987 making it a historic house museum. Mr. and Mrs. Poe had ten children from which two died before they were one year old. Since electricity was not available in Fayetteville at that time, they used to have gas electric lighting equipments. After few years, when electricity was available, the family still did not give up their gas equipment because electricity was still not very reliable back then as gas. Every room in the house had closets; very few homes at that time had closets. The closets in the house were so tiny that only one person could stand inside and not turn around. The family still had closets for storing seasonal clothing. As the season changes, the window treatments, area rugs, and even furniture décor was changed. The kitchen has an early 1900’s wood coal burning stove. It includes a water reservoir, and a warming oven. They say that the Poe house is haunted because they have had many strange occurrences. Also because they think that the neighborhood is historic, there is a market house near where they used to buy and sell slaves, and there is an old historic train station near it. I decided to do my project on the Poe house because it is very unique. It tells you how the people in 19th and 20th century used to live, and what their customs that they followed were. Bibliography http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/ www.fayettevillenc.net/ http://www.visitnc.com/ museumofthecapefear.ncdcr.gov/ http://fayetteville.northcarolina.com/ http://www.visitfayettevillenc.com/ http://www.gofayetteville.com/