On This Day – January 19th

The Poe Toaster is the name given to an to an unidentified person (or more probably two persons in succession, possibly father and son?) who, for over seven decades, paid an annual tribute to American author Edgar Allan Poe by visiting the cenotaph marking his original grave in Baltimore, Maryland.

The Toaster would visit the cenotaph each Janury 19th, Poe's birthday, in the early hours of the morning. The shadowy figure, dressed in black with a wide-brimmed hat and white scarf, would pour himself a glass of cognac and raise a toast to Poe's memory, then vanish into the night, leaving three roses in a distinctive arrangement and the unfinished bottle of cognac.

Onlookers gathered annually in hopes of glimpsing the elusive Toaster, who did not seek publicity and was rarely seen or photographed.

The visits are reported to have taken place beginning sometime in the 1930s (although no mention of the Toaster appeared in print until the 1950s.

On several occasions, the Toaster left a note along with the roses and cognac. Some notes were simple expressions of devotion, such as "Edgar, I haven't forgotten you." In 1993, a cryptic message stated, "The torch will be passed."

In 1999, a note announced that the original Toaster had died the previous year and had passed the tradition to "a son." Subsequent eyewitnesses noted that the post-1998 Toaster appeared to be a younger individual.

In 2009 the cenotaph received its final visit. Speculation suggests this was by plan not accident as the date marked the bicentennial of Poe's birth.

In 2015, the Maryland Historical Society organized a competition to select a new individual to resurrect the annual tribute in a modified, tourism-friendly form.

The new Toaster – who will also remain anonymous – made his first appearance during the daylight hours of January 16th 2016 (a Saturday, three days before Poe's birthday), wearing the traditional garb and playing Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre on a violin. After raising the traditional cognac toast and placing the roses, he intoned, "Cineri gloria sera venit" ("Glory paid to one's ashes comes too late", from an epigram by the Roman poet Martial), and departed

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