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The following is the text only from the
Ulster-Scot newspaper article.
Edgar Allan Poe’s Ulster-Scots’ Connection By ROBERT DENSMORE BRILL* “Edgar (Allan) Poe’s ancestry,
on his father’s side, was Scotch-Irish, and can be traced back into the Parish of Fenwick in Ayrshire, Scotland, where
there were intermarriages with some of the remote ancestors of the Allans and Galts.” (Hervey Allen, Israfel, “Notes on Poe’s Ancestry.” p. 679,
1934 edition)
Of all the biographies and articles that I have read about Poe, only Hervey Allen wrote of Poe’s Scottish Connections.
From Allen’s work I formulated an itinerary, and made the effort to seek and find the towns in Scotland where Poe’s
foster father, John Allan, is known to have visited during his six year return home to Ayrshire, in 1815. Allen tells his
readers that it was one of David Poe’s sons, John, who married a Jane McBride, and with her brought their family of
two sons, David and George, to Newcastle, Delaware, in 1742. Thereafter, they “settle in Pennsylvania.” Seventy
years later, from these persons Edgar Allan Poe is a descendant.
I have several articles published in the United States and Scotland that provide sufficient information
to let a reader know that it was from the line of Poes who remained in Fenwick, and all of Ayrshire, who provide the evidence
that Edgar Allan Poe had a substantial Scottish heritage and connection. After all, only one Poe left his Ayrshire family;
the rest of them remained. The Family Tree Magazine,
the Burns Chronicle (two editions. 1999 & 2001), The Poe Review, The Atlantic Literary Review,
among periodicals; then several local newspapers in Ayrshire: The Greenock Advertiser, the Saltcoats and Ardrossan Herald, the Irvine Herald, and the Kilmarnock Standard have published articles of these facts. There are books
which mention our work (Frank Beattie’s Proud Kilmarnock), three BBC Scotland Radio programs, and finally an independent movie. Other researchers in Scotland have made
similar discoveries of which I have written, not the least of whom is well known Scots Magazine writer, James Gracie, and Robert Burns World Federation, Ltd., Executive Council member, Tom Hutton. True, it is well documented that
Poe’s mother was from London, England, of the United Kingdom of that time. However, for a hundred and fifty years, no
American scholar of Poe either has thought it worthy of the time and effort to visit Scotland, or simply did not think to
investigate the Scottish linage of the Poes.
Nevertheless, in 1926, and again in his 1934 edition of Israfel, Hervey Allen made clear that Edgar’s ancestor was an Ulster-Scot, to which your the Ulster-Scot
magazine makes known that immigrants from Scotland to Ireland are now referred. Allen tells us that David Poe “departed
this vale of tears,” Cavon County, Ireland, with his wife, Sarah, about August 1742. We are never told why they left
Scotland, much less Ireland? The intriguing fact is that Allen never tells his readers where he obtained his information,
nor anything of the relatives who remained in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Cavon appears to be just below the area of Ulster,
Northern Ireland? In my research and project I never gave a thought to any of the Poes outside of Scotland; however, I had
learned that the Allans, Galts, and Poes had been intermarrying with each other, and contributing to their families’
shipping businesses between Saltcoats, Irvine, Troon, and Stranraer to Belfast for over a hundred years, during the Eighteenth
Century.
This is
extremely important information when trying to understand why David Poe ever ended up in, and left from, Ireland in the first
place. Why did he not leave for the British Colonies from Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, like thousands before and since? More
to the question: why did he not leave from the port of Irvine, Ayrshire, but a half-hour walk from Fenwich, his “home
town“? I discuss this and so many other issues in my book that is now in progress, The Mystery of “Mar’se Eddie”
in the Shire, Edgar allan Poe's Scottish Connections. Nevertheless, of interest to readers of The Ulster-Scot, one may simply want to know that “the Father
of American Literature,” Edgar Allan Poe, appears to be one of those enigmas of American heritage whose genealogy and
ancestry either cannot be traced, or has been traced through the Ulster-Scots of Northern Ireland. I did not know of the distinction
when I began my research project; consequently, I have researched only through Parish records in Scotland.
Where and from whom Poe evolved is not
so important to this writer than, simply, to know such origins, as they may give insight into his writings. Indeed, our discoveries
have shown us that Poe used a substantial number of local customs, place-names, and traditions from western Scotland, especially
that of Ayrshire. One of his most powerful short stories, “Descent into the Maelstrom,” is fully laden with place
names of his ancestor’s “hometown,” Fenwich (pronounced Fin‘ ick). Nevertheless, I have received criticism
from the American line of the Poe family, as well as rejection of my findings from established Poe scholarship organizations
and publications.
I have
gone on, independently, to foster artifacts and sites in Ayrshire that support my findings. For example, Poe’s uncle,
John Allan’s cousin, John Galt’s home in Greenock (Strathclyde), his uncle David Poe’s and aunt Anne Allan’s
headstone in Saltcoats (North Ayrshire), Poe's works in The Hogg Room of the Burns’ library in Irvine (East Ayrshire),
and a Holy Communion pewter set in Dundonald (West Ayrshire), and recently, his aunt’s (ne’e Allan) and uncle’s (Allan Fowlds) house in Kilmarnock (Ayrshire).
In each locale above, where historical groups exist, all have invited my presentation on Poe’s Scots’ Connections.
Moreover, they have cooperated in my project to mark Poe artifacts and sites in some way. The former home of Poe’s aunt
(John Allan’s sister) Elizabeth Galt‘s Flowerbanks,
at Newton Stewart, is where I learned of the illegal sea trade that was carried on by the three families of Allan-Galt-Poe
from the ports of Saltcoats, Irvine, Troon, and Stranaer to Belfast, and other Northern Ireland ports.
Why they and other Irish and Scots were involved with
this trade is simple. These families hated the German Hanoverians who had robbed the last of the Royal Stewarts of their crowns.
In consequence, Scots were paying customs duties and taxes which they felt were unconscionable. This hatred of the House of
Hanover is largely responsible for the subsequent American Revolution, its founding document, The Declaration of Independance, a glaring reflection of the Scots’ Declaration of Declaration
of Arbroath. Readers in Ireland and
Scotland--not to mention those in Eastern Canada, where Eddie‘s father, John Allan’s cousin, John Galt, settled
the province around Guelph, Ontario--have no difficulty in grasping these concepts. But the modern city of Toronto is now
better known from those times, while the Allans, Galts, and Poes are long forgotten. John Galt (aka Gault), and his friends
in the British Parliament, worked through a company of their creation, the British-American Land Company. Galt’s Land
Company sought to develop the new territories in the Canadian north, until he was put at odds, and in prison, by other Ontario
land developers of that time.
As a consequence of reading an article in the Family Tree,
published by the Odom Payne Genealogical Library, of Moultrie, Georgia, regarding the Ulster-Scots, I have since obtained
a copy of that wonderful publication of local interest. As I read of the "Ulster-Scots of America," I became
fascinated by the Edgar Allan Poe connection to those Scots as well. The Caledonian Club of San Francisco, that I joined in
1996, claims to have “the largest Scottish Highland Games in the world.” Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that
I was the Chairman of the Living History Committee one year (1999), I had no idea of any Irish-Scots influence or movement
in the United States. Of course, when around my Caledonian clansmen, I do not speak loudly of my love of Edgar Allan Poe.
The reason is that as everyone from the Irish, to the English, to the Bostonians claim Poe as their “native son,”
most despise him. In fact, Poe regarded himself a Virginian, as his contemporary, General Robert E. Lee, did. Nevertheless,
that identity as a Virginian has long hid the fact that while it is well known he had an English mother, Poe was descendant
from an Ulster-Scot, a Scot living in Ireland. The Irish are Roman
catholics, while the Scots-Irish are Presbyterian, Protostants.
*The author is a Steward Member of the Museum of Scotland (Edinburgh),
an Individual Member of the Robert Burns World Federation, Ltd. (Kilmarnock), an Associate Member of the Caledonian Club of
San Francisco, the Caledonian Society of Hawaii (Honolulu), the Saint Andrew Society of Hawaii (Honolulu), the Murray Clan
Society of North America, The Poe Society of Richmond, Virginia, the Poe Studies Association (of Penn State), as well as numerous
American patriotic organizations, such as the American Legion, Post 29 (Kona, Hawaii), and the U. S. S. Hornet Foundation
(Alameda NAS, California). He is a California Licensed Private Investigator and California Licensed Firearms Instructor, retired
to Hawaii, where he devotes his time to writing his book.
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