Edgar Allan Poe
A persistent, though mostly apocryphal story involving Fort Independence was allegedly the inspiration behind one of Edgar Allan Poe's well known works. A monument outside the west battery of the fort marks the grave of Lieutenant Robert F. Massie who was killed in a duel there on December 25, 1817. According to folklorist Edward Rowe Snow, Massie was so popular with the soldiers stationed at Fort Independence that they took out their frustration on his killer, Lieutenant Gustavus Drane, by walling him up within a vault in the fort. Edgar Allan Poe, while serving with the 1st United States Artillery Regiment at Fort Independence purportedly heard the tale and was inspired, according to Snow, to write The Cask of Amontillado.
The legend that purportedly inspired Poe is not entirely accurate. The duel did in fact take place, but the victor, Lieutenant Drane, was not murdered by the fort's soldiers but continued in his military career and was later promoted to the rank of captain. After the Second World War Lietenant Massie's remains were moved to the cemetery at Fort Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts.
Read more about this topic: Fort Independence (Massachusetts)
Famous quotes by edgar allan poe:
“We have ... a thirst unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown us the crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the immortality of Man.... It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us—but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams—
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate;”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“After reading all that has been written, and after thinking all that can be thought, on the topics of God and the soul, the man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)