Edgar Allan Poe to John Allan — 1826-05-25

Edgar Allan Poe to John Allan — 1826-05-25 Historical letter date: 1826-05-25. Source edition: Mary Newton Stanard, Edgar Allan Poe Letters Till Now Unpublished, 1925, letter one. This is repository machine OCR of the printed transcription; spelling and recognition errors remain. Consult the accompanying local scan excerpt and manuscript facsimile. The 1925 transcription labels this letter May 1826; the supplied checklist dates it May 25. The more precise date is catalog attribution, not a date visible in this transcription. [Source scan page 53] LETTER NUMBER ONE University May 1826 Dear Sir, I this morning received the clothes you sent me, viz an uniform coat, six yards of Striped cloth for pantaloons & four pair of socks The coat is a beautiful one & fits me exadly I thought it bet not to write 'till I received the clothes or I should have written before this You have heard no doubt of the disturbances in College Soon after you left here the Grand Jury met and put the Students in a terrible fright so much so that the lectures were unattended and those whose names were upon the Sheriff's lift travelled off into the woods & mountains taking their beds & provisions along with them there were about 50 on the lift so you may suppose the College was very well thinn'd this was the firft day of the fright the second day **A proclamation" was issued by the faculty forbidding "any Student under pain of a major punishment to leave his dormitory between the hours of 8 & i o A M (at which time the Sheriffs would be about) or in any way to resist the lawful authority of the Sheriffs" This order however was very little attended to as the fear of the Faculty could not counterbalance that of the Grand Jury moSt of the "indicated" ran off a second time into the woods and upon an examination the next morn- ing by the Faculty Some were reprimanded some 37 [Source scan page 54] 38 EDGAR ALLAN POE LETTERS suspended and one expelled James Albert Clarke from Manchester (I went to school with him at Burke's) was suspended for two months. ArmStead Carter from this neighbourhood, for the remainder of the session And been Thomas Barclay for ever There have A several fights since you were here One between Turner Dixon, and Blow from Norfolk excited more interest than any I have seen, for a common fight is so trifling an occurrence that no notice is taken of it Blow got much the advantage in the scuffle but Dixon ported him in very indecent terms upon which the whole Norfolk party rose in arms & nothing was talked off for a week, but Dixon's charge & Blow's explanation every pillar in the University was white with scratched paper Dixon made a physical attack upon Arthur Smith one of Blow's Norfolk friends and a "very fine fellow" he Struck him with a large Stone on one side of his head whereupon Smith drew a piStol (which are all the fashion here) and had it not missed fire would have put an end to the controversy but so it was it did miss fire and the matter has since been more peaceably settled as the Prodlor engaged a Magistrate to bind the whole forces on both sides over to the peace Give my love to Ma & Miss Nancy & all my friends Will you be so good as to send me a T J fe I remain copy of the HiStoriae of Tacitus it X7 rr o- i rj Yours afredhonly is a small volume also some more ^ , Edgar soap [Source scan page 55] LETTER NUMBER ONE E. A. Poe University May 1826 e W 3 cj 39 12 pr CJ