The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1488]
During the revolutionary war he conducted the Massachusetts [illegible] and was a “great rebel” — my Father’s name is E. S. Thomas. He learned the printing business from his uncle Isaih (Isaiah), and afterwards emigrated to Charleston, South Carolina, where he, after establishing himself in the book-business, met my mother, who was then on a visit to the South from Baltimore, of which city she was a native. Shortly after the marriage of my father he removed from Charleston to Providence, Rhode Island, where I was born in, I think, the fall of 1808, (October 25). I left Rhode-Island a child in the nurse’s arms and have never been back — so I hold myself to be a Southerner — as my parents returned to Charleston with me. (My family consists of myself, then Lewis, Frances, Susan, Mary, Martha, Belle and Calvin.) I was a delicate child, and, at the age of four, I fell from a furniture box on which I was playing, and injured my left leg. I went into the house crying, as a child would, and soon returned to play again. My limb, a few weeks afterwards, became very painful, my health gradually declined, and the physicians advised my parents to send me to a healthier climate. In charge of my aunt I was sent to Baltimore, and placed under the care of my aunt Foulke. There I grew robust and recovered from my lameness except an occasional weakness in my limb, when I over-exercised myself at play. When about eight or nine, in running to the window, over a wet floor, to look at the soldiers passing, I got a fall, which, after long confinement (a year or more), threw me, a skeleton, on crutches. I used them until five years since, when the contrivance I now use was suggested to me. I went to school very little in consequence of my lameness and frequent indisposition, and when I was seventeen I commenced the study of the law. I have never been to college. The first attempt I made at scribbling was at this time. I wrote a poetical satire on some fops about town, and they became exasperated with the printer of the paper, I forget its name — a scurrilous penny-sheet — and tore his office to pieces, making Pi of his type. I attended at this time a debating society, which had a great many visitors, and there I used to hold forth with the rest. I was invited one Fourth of July to make a speech before the society on a steamboat excursion, and, getting some little credit for it I was invited by my political friends to address their meetings which I did, being then rated with Jacksonism. Mr. Scott — (John Scott) — treated me with great kindness, as did his lady — I bear them in most grateful remembrance — as I do Mr. Scotts’ brother my fellow student now a practitioner in Baltimore, T. Parkin Scott Esqr. Your brother and I were then intimate — and rather rivals in a love affair. Scott, my fellow student studied hard, — I often stole out to the Baltimore Library and devoured the works upon Poetry, Oratory and Biography. Just after I was admitted to practice, my father, who had lost a handsome fortune, emigrated with his family, leaving myself, to Cincinnati and established “The Commercial Advertiser.” I practiced a few months, and then from ill health, retired to the country, where, after a year’s sojourn, I emigrated to Cincinnati in 1832 and assisted my father in editing his paper. We soon differed upon political matters, and I commenced the practice of the law, but in bad health. I defended a great many criminals, I believe with some success, and lectured before the Lyceum. In descending the river I wrote several stanzas expressive of my feelings, which I published in my father’s paper. They were noticed and complimented by the contemporary press, and I wrote out some farther impressions which the new scenes had made on me, and upon invitation delivered them before the Lyceum, in the shape of a rambling poem called “The Emigrant, or Reflections in descending the Ohio.” This took, if I may so say, before the Lyceum and I was requested to publish it, which I did in 1833. A few copies were printed by one of our Cincinnati booksellers, and circulated