Lovecraft later wrote in another letter that "Poe knew of this place, & is said to have wandered among its whispering willows during his visits here 90 years ago." Benefit Street is no stranger to either hauntings or horror writers, and Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), whose work Lovecraft admired and imitated, did indeed haunt Benefit Street (some say that he does still). From the Providence Athenaeum at 251 Benefit (a favorite hangout of both Poe and Lovecraft), Poe often strolled the several blocks to the John Reynolds House (c. 1785) at 88 Benefit Street, just above the cemetery, to visit Sarah Helen Whitman (1803-1878), to whom Poe was romantically--and, as it turned out, tragically--attached.

Text © Dr. Michael Bell