The widow Meagher makes several appearances in biographies of Edgar Allan Poe, and they all seem to have come from the account of an anonymous San Franciscan, first printed in Francis Lemoine Didier's No Name Magazine in 1890 and reproduced here from Dider's The Poe Cult (1909):
A former Baltimorean, now living in San Francisco, gives what he claims to be a true account of the poet's last days and death. This is his story: "I was an intimate associate of Edgar Allan Poe for years. Much that has been said and written regarding his death is false. His habitual resort in Baltimore was the Widow Meagher's place. This was an oyster-stand and liquor-bar on the city front, corresponding in some respects with the coffee houses of San Francisco. It was frequented much by printers, and ranked as a respectable place, where parties could enjoy a game of cards, or engage in social conversation. Poe was a great favorite with the old woman. His favorite seat was just behind the stand, and about as quiet and sociable as an oyster himself. He went by the name of 'Bard,' and when parties came into the shop, it was 'Bard, come up and take a nip;' or, 'Bard, come and take a hand in this game.'
"Whenever the Widow Meagher met with any incident or idea that tickled her fancy, she would ask the 'Bard' to versify it. Poe always complied, writing many a witty couplet, and at times poems of some length. These verses, quite as meritorious as some by which his name was immortalized, were thus frittered into obscurity. It was in this little shop that Poe's attention was called to an advertisement in a Philadelphia paper of a prize for the best story; and it was there that he wrote his famous 'Gold Bug,' which carried off the hundred dollar prize."
Under the name "Meagle," she shows up with Poe in The Amiable Baltimoreans, written in 1951 by Francis Beirne, who includes a bit of a location. Beirne writes that Poe "haunted E.J. Coale's Bookstore on Calvert street and also became a familiar figure at the Widow Meagle's Oyster Parlor down by the harbor on Pratt Street."
A 1909 article in Cosmopolitan magazine is the possible source for the Pratt Street location. Written by Elisabeth Ellicott Poe, some sort of relative of Edgar Allan, who places the "Oyster shop of 'Mother' Meagher on Pratt Street near Hollingsford, where the prize story 'The Gold Bug' was written on top of an oyster barrel, with the noise of the shop about him."
There's no Hollingsford Street, but at least as of 1890 there was an intersection of Pratt and Hollingsworth...
... and it burned in the Great Baltimore Fire of 1905.
| Burnt district near Pratt and Hollingsworth Streets from across Baltimore Basin (Harbor) |
The picture at the top of this post, purporting to be the Widow Meagher's place, is from the Cosmopolitan article. The tracks in front of it suggest it could be Pratt Street -- they are shown in maps from the same time. Another view of the city comes from Edward Sachse's 1869 bird's eye view map. It's probably unrealistic to expect Sachse to get all the details right, but from an imagined vantage point somewhere over Brooklyn, he captures the waterfront along Pratt Street, including the intersection at Hollingsworth. In the center of this detail picture, there's a building at the right spot that matches the style of the Cosmopolitan picture.
So there's the evidence for the Oyster Parlor, as well as I've been able to find it. On the other hand, there are no records, either in the census or city directories from the time, that anyone named Meagher ever owned a restaurant or tavern, or that one existed at this location. The Poe connection is tenuous at best. Didier's anonymous San Franciscan seems to have given his interview around 1890, 40 years after Poe's death, and his account has been dismissed by most scholars, along with the so-called "verses to the widow Meagher," which are believed to be inauthentic (I don't have a copy of them, but it's on my list of things to do).
One non-Poe detail that came up during my search for the widow, and I'm not sure what to make of it, is this passage from the book Sarah M. Peale: America's First Woman Artist by Joan King, published in 1987:
The study occupied [Peale] as well as anything could, but there were times when she simply walked through the streets of Baltimore, stopping at the bookstore on Calvert Street, or the Widow Meagle's Oyster Parlor on Pratt Street near Hollysworth, or the Baltimore Library near Holliday.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that there probably was no Widow Meagher's Oyster Parlor. But there should have been.
For completeness' sake, here is a copy of the article based on Didier's interview that made the rounds in 1890, which also deals with cooping, and Poe's death, reproduced from the Grey River Argus in New Zealand (right click to open it full size):
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