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By Root 16815 0

as we can trace our immediate progenitors they are Irish. John Poe about a century ago, was a name of much note in the financial history of Ireland. He was of an ancient & noble family, and married a daughter of the British Admiral McBride — himself of very illustrious descent. From this John Poe we date. I give you a kind of table showing how we spring from him. He came to America in the fourth year of his marriage, with two children, David & George (your grandfather & mine) and settled in Nottingham Co. Pa.

Here he had eight children — making then in all. In the table I give all the names in the order of age.

__

__ | John (dead) __

| | William (dead) | Henry (dead)

| David --- < David (dead) ------< Edgar __

| | Samuel (dead) |__ Rosalie | Henry

* Mrs Wm | | * Maria --------------------------------< Virginia (dead)

Clemm | | __ |__Virginia (my wife)

| | | Elizabeth

* Mrs Henry | |__* Eliza < Lewis David (dead)

Herring | | Henry

(dead) | | George

| |__ Emily

| __ __

| | | George __

| | | Neilson | twins

| | Jacob < Amelia __|

| | | Mosher

| | |__ Harriet

| George < __

| | | Your

John Poe ------< | George < father's

| | |__ family

| | __

| | Catherine |

| | William | all married except

* first Mrs | * | Harriet -------------- Josephine (Neilson's wife) | Harriet - each has

Wm Clemm | |__ Georgiana | 4 children

| Harriet __|

| __

| Robert |

| John | all died unmarried except Hester & Mary

| Samuel | who are since dead, leaving each one

| James < child, also, since dead.

| Jane |

| Hester |

| Mary |__

| __

| | William | ---- live in Augusta, Geo.

| William < Robert |

| | Washington ----- lives in Maco, Geo

|__ |__ Matilda (dead)

By this table you will perceive that, according to the rules of British descent, I am the oldest, or head, of all the Poes in America, descendants of John. There are a great many of the name living, I understand, in S. Carolina — but these must be another family altogether — as the original John Poe had no brothers or sisters. My own age is 26; which, I presume, is very nearly your own.

With your father, my aunt & mother-in-law Mrs. Clemm, is of course well acquainted — at least was — for an access to fortune like that of your father’s is apt to generate a strange forgetfulness of old friends. He was in Philadelphia a few months ago, when I saw him once for a short time. The circumstances of his first & second marriage, as also many of the circumstances of your own, are familiar to me.

In regard to myself. My father, with his wife, were on a visit to friends in Richmond Va, when a violent illness carried both off, within a few weeks of each other. I was then about a year old, and my sister, Rosealie, was an infant. A wealthy gentleman of Virga (of Scotish descent) a Mr John Allan, had taken a fancy to me, and, having no children of his own, adopted me — at the same time persuading a friend of his, Mr William Mackenzie, to adopt my sister. My grandfather, David Poe, was living at this time, in good circumstances, and his consent to the double adoption was obtained with some difficulty. I lived with Mr Allan, who remained childless, until my seventeenth-year, when he inherited from an uncle a fortune of some 30,000$ per annum. This vast income of wealth nearly turned his brain, and, worse, confirmed him in habits of habitual drunkenness. In his frequent paroxysms of this he treated me with what I considered indignity. I accordingly left his house, was recalled with apologies, left it a second time, and refused all offers of reconciliation until hearing of the extreme illness of his wife, whom I had always regarded as a mother. I then returned — but too late to find her alive. Upon her death, I again left the protection of Mr Allan, who now gave loose to all the baseness of his nature. In a short time after this he married a second wife, had two or three children, and died, of course without leaving me any thing. His second marriage was in 62d year. I was at W. Point at the time, where, by my own influence alone, I had obtained a Cadets appointment.