On October 3rd, 1849, rain pelted the streets of Baltimore.

The air was brisk and cool enough that day to see your breath.

It was a day made for staying in next to the fire with a brandy to warm your belly.

But Joseph W. Walker, a Baltimore son compositor, was heading out anyway.

It was election day in Baltimore, and he was a newsman after all.

He sloshed his way through the streets towards Gunners Hall, a hotel in tavern on Lombard Street that was doing additional duty that day as a polling location for the fourth ward.

When Walker got to the tavern, he came across a delirious man sprawled in the gutter.

Judging by the man's secondhand clothes, Walker might have mistaken him for a vagrant at first.

But this was no vagrant.

After speaking to the man for a few minutes,

Walker realized who the man was

and knew he needed to get help.

Walker dashed off a note and dispatched it to Joseph Snodgrass,

a physician who lived nearby on High Street, it read,

Dear sir, there is a gentleman, rather the for wear at Ryan's fourth ward poles who goes

under the cognizant of Edgar A Poe, and who appears in great distress.

He says he is acquainted with you, and I assure assure you he is in need of immediate assistance.

Yours in haste Joseph W. Walker.

Snoggrass who had once been the editor of the Baltimore Saturday Visitor

and was also a longtime friend of Ed Graham and Poe rushed to the polling station.

He was shocked at his friend's appearance when he got there.

Poe was slumped in a chair and when he turned his eyes up to look at Snodgrass,

...