In 1849, Edgar Allen Poe was on a train from Richmond to Philadelphia, but for some reason, he never ended up in Philadelphia.
On September 27th, Edgar Allen Poe boarded a train in Richmond, Virginia on his way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to accompany another writer in his editing process. Oddly enough, Poe ended up inexplicably getting off of the train in Baltimore.
Nobody knew why Poe got off there, but after six days of being untrackable, people started to get worried. On October 3rd, Poe was found outside of a bar, writhing on the sidewalk, wearing tattered clothing that didn’t belong to him.
He was rushed to a hospital and he fell into a coma for several days. He would momentarily return from the coma, only to thrash around in his hospital bed repeating the name “Reynolds.”
Poe thrashed so much that he had to be strapped down to his hospital bed, and on October 7th, he eventually passed away.
There is a multitude of theories as to why and how Edgar Allan Poe died, but the most plausible is that he was captured by a group of individuals called “Coopers.”
Coopers would capture individuals from out of town and force them to take massive amounts of opium and drink massive amounts of alcohol. They would then dress up these individuals and force them to vote at different polling stations in the city.
The coopers essentially forced people to vote for individuals that were paying them to kidnap strangers and have them illegally vote for them. This was a tragic end to Poe’s lengthy and miserable life leading up to this point.