Poe and Lafayette connections are Revolutionary; new exhibit and bus tour show how

For America 250, Poe Baltimore wants to share the lesser-known history of Edgar Allan Poe’s family history, which connects them, through Baltimore, to the Revolutionary War and the Marquis de Lafayette.

Poe Baltimore is commemorating this unique history with a special exhibit and bus tour. The bus tour takes riders through Baltimore’s Revolutionary War past, and a visit to the Carroll Mansion allows visitors to learn about the Poe family’s connection to Lafayette.

Any Baltimorean worth their Old Bay Seasoning knows that the Edgar Allan Poe connection runs deep, even though his residence here only lasted three years. It was in Baltimore he wrote “MS Found in a Bottle,” “Berenice,” and “Shadow – A Parable.” It’s also where he met his wife.

Two generations earlier, however, his grandfather, David Poe Sr. helped found Baltimore’s historic First and Franklin Church. During the Revolution, David and his wife, Elizabeth, aided Lafayette’s troops. Virginia’s Poe Museum website quotes J. Thomas Scharf’s “Chronicles of Baltimore,” describing how when Poe Sr. was honorary Quartermaster General of Baltimore, he and Elizabeth supplied $500 to help clothe Lafayette’s troops.

Upon a return trip to Virginia, Lafayette asked about Poe Sr., saying, “Mr. David Poe, who resided in Baltimore when I was here, and of his own very limited means supplied me with five hundred dollars to aid in clothing my troops, and whose wife, with her own hands, cut out five hundred pairs of pantaloons, and superintended the making of them for the use of my men.”

Edgar Allan Poe was 15 years old during that 1824 visit of Lafayette’s and served on the honor guard chosen to escort him on his tour of Richmond.

The “Revolution & Remembrance Bus Tour: Baltimore’s Patriots and the Poe Family” begins on Saturday, April 18, and runs every third Saturday between April and September. Riders can walk through Westminster Hall & Burying Ground, final resting place of Edgar Allan Poe and his grandparents, along with many other Revolutionary War heroes. They will also visit Old St. Paul’s Cemetery to see where Samuel Chase – the United States’ first impeached Supreme Court Justice– is laid to rest. The last stop is the historic Carroll Mansion where Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, spent his final days.

Beginning April 4, 2026, visitors to the Carroll Mansion can see the “Poe, Revolution, & the Marquis de Lafayette” exhibit, detailing the connection between Lafayette and the Poe family. The life-sized diorama is part of Poe Baltimore’s America 250 programming, highlighting the elder Poes’ contributions to the nation’s founding and the younger Poe’s eternal literary genius. The exhibit is on view during regular museum hours, and included with admission to Carroll Mansion.

Poe Baltimore is a nonprofit organization created to fund, maintain, and interpret The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum for the thousands of visitors who come from around the world each year, and as part of a broader mission of city-wide events and educational opportunities celebrating Poe’s legacy in Baltimore and beyond.