Edgar Allan Poe's Ulster-Scot connection

by ROBERT DENSMORE BRILL*

"Edgar (Allan) Poe's ancestry, on his father's side, was Scotch-Irish, and can be traced back into the Parish of Fenwick in Ayrshire, Scotland, where there were intermarriages with some of the remote ancestors of the Allans and Galts." (Hervey Allen, Israfel, "Notes on Poe's Ancestry." p.679, 1934 edition)

Of all the biographies and articles that I have read about poet Edgar Allan Poe, only Hervey Allen wrote of Poe's Scottish connections. From Allen's work I formulated an itinerary, and made the effort to seek and find the towns in Scotland where Poe's foster father, John Allan, is known to have visited during his six-year return home to Ayrshire, in 1815. Allen tells his readers that it was one of David Poe's sons, John, who married a Jane McBride, and with her brought their family of two sons, David and George, to Newcastle, Delaware, in 1742. Thereafter, they "settle in Pennsylvania." Seventy years later, from these persons Edgar Allan Poe is a descendant.

I have several articles published in the United States and Scotland that provide sufficient information to let a reader know that it was from the line of Poes who remained in Fenwick, and all of Ayrshire, who provide the evidence that Edgar Allan Poe had a substantial Scottish heritage and connection. After all, only one Poe left his Ayrshire family; the rest of them remained. The Family Tree Magazine, the Burns Chronicle (two editions. 1999 & 2001), The Poe Review, The Atlantic Literary Review, among periodicals; then several local newspapers in Ayrshire: The Greenock Advertiser, the Saltcoats and Ardrossan Herald, the Irvine Herald, and the Kilmarnock Standard have published articles of these facts. There are books which mention our work (Frank Beattie's Proud Kilmarnock), a BBC Scotland Radio program, and finally an independent movie.

Other researchers in Scotland have made similar discoveries of which I have written, not the least of whom is well known Scots Magazine writer, James Gracie, and Robert Burns World Federation, Ltd., Executive Council member, Tom Hutton. True, it is well documented that Poe's mother was from London, England, of the United Kingdom of that time.

However, for 150 years, no American Scotland, or simply did not think to investigate the Scottish linage of the Poes.

Nevertheless, in 1926, and again in his 1934 edition of Israfel, Harvey Allen made clear that Edgar's ancestor was an Ulster-Scot, to which your Ulster-Scot Newspaper makes known that immigrants from Scotland to Ireland are now referred. Allen tells us that David Poe "departed this vale of tears," Cavan County, Ireland, with his wife, Sarah, about August 1742. We are never told why they left Scotland, much less Ireland?

The intriguing fact is that Allen never tells his readers where he obtained his information, nor anything of the relatives who remained in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Cavan appears to be just below the area of Ulster, Northern Ireland? In my research and project I never gave a thought to any of the Poes outside of Scotland; however, I had learned that the Allans, Galts, and Poes had been intermarrying with each other, and contributing to their families' shipping business between Saltcoats, Irvine, Troon, and Stranraer to Belfast for over 100 years, during the 18th Century.

This is extremely important information when trying to understand why David Poe ever ended up in, and left from, Ireland in the first place. Why did he not leave for the British Colonies from Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, like thousands before and since? More to the question; why did he not  leave from the port of Irvine, Ayrshire, but a half-hour walk from Fenwich, his "home town"? I discuss this and so many other issues in my book that is now in progress, "Mar'se Eddie" in the Shire.

Nevertheless, of interest to readers of The Ulster-Scot, who may simply want to know that "the Father of American Literature," Edgar Allan Poe, appears to be one of those enigmas of American heritage whose genealogy and ancestry either cannot be traced, or has been traced through the Ulster-Scots of Northern Ireland. I did not know of the distinction when I began my research project; consequently, I have researched only through parish records in Scotland.

Where and from whom Poe evolved is not so important to this writer than, simply, to know such origins, as they may give insight into his writings. Indeed, our discoveries have shown us that Poe used a substantial number of local customs, place-names, and traditions from western Scotland, especially that of Ayrshire.
One of his most powerful short stories, "Descent into the Maelstrom, is fully laden with place names of his ancestor's "hometown," Fenwich (pronounced Fin'ick). Nevertheless, I have received criticism from the American line of the Poe family, as well as rejection of my findings from established Poe scholarship organizations and publications.

I have gone on, independently, to foster artifacts and sites in Ayrshire that support my findings. For example, Poe's uncle, John Allan's cousin, John GaltÕs home in Greenock (Strathclyde), his uncle David Poe's and aunt Anne Allan's headstone in Saltcoats (North Ayrshire), his works in The Hogg Room of the Burns' library in Irvine (East Ayrshire), and a Holy Communion pewter set in Dundonald (West Ayrshire), and recently, his aunt's (ne'e Allan) and uncle's (Allan Fowlds) house in Kilmarnock (Ayrshire).

In each locale above, where historical groups exist, all have invited my presentation on Poe's Scots' Connections.

Moreover, they have co-operated in my project to mark Poe artifacts and sites in some way. The former home of Poe's aunt (John Allan's sister) Elizabeth Galt's Flowerbanks, at Newton Stewart, is where I learned of the illegal sea trade that was carried on by the three families of Allan-Galt-Poe from the ports of Saltcoats, Irvine, Troon, and Stranaer to Belfast, and other Northern Ireland ports.

Why they and other Irish and Scots were involved with this trade is simple. These families hated the German Hanoverians who had robbed the last of the Royal Stewarts' crowns. In consequence, Scots were paying customs duties and taxes which they felt were unconscionable. This hatred of the House of Hanover is largely responsible for the subsequent American Revolution, its founding document a glaring reflection of the Scots' Declaration of Declaration of Arbroath.
Readers in Ireland and Scotland - not to mention those in Eastern Canada, where Eddie's father, John Allan's cousin, John Galt, settled the province around Guelph, Ontario - have no difficulty in grasping these concepts. But the modern city of Toronto is now better known from those times, while the Allans, Galts, and Poes are long forgotten.

John Galt (aka Gault), and his friends in the British Parliament, worked through a company of their creation, the British-American Land Company. Galt's Land Company sought to develop the new territories in north, until he was put at odds, and in prison, by other Ontario land developers of that time.

As a consequence of reading an article in the Family Tree, published by the Odom Payne Genealogical Library, of Moultrie, Georgia, regarding the Ulster-Scots, I have since obtained a copy of your wonderful publication.

As I read of the Ulster-Scots of America, I became fascinated by the Edgar Allan Poe connection to those Scots as well. The Caledonian Club of San Francisco, that I joined in 1996, claims to have "the largest Scottish Highland Games in the world." Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that I was the chairman of the Living History Committee one year (1999), I had no idea of any Irish-Scots influence or movement in the United States.

Of course, when around my Caledonian clansmen, I do not speak loudly of my love of Edgar Allan Poe. The reason is that as everyone from the Irish, to the English, to the Bostonians claim Poe as their "native son," most despise him. In fact, Poe regarded himself a Virginian, as his contemporary, General Robert E. Lee, did. Nevertheless, that identity as a Virginian has long hid the fact that while it is well known he had an English mother, Poe was descendant from an Ulster-Scot.

*The author is a steward member of the Museum of Scotland (Edinburgh), an individual member of the Robert Burns World Federation, Ltd. (Kilmarnock), and associate member of the Caledonian Club of San Francisco, the Caledonian Society of Hawaii (Honolulu), the Saint Andrew Society of Hawaii (Honolulu), the Murray Clan Society of North America, The Poe Society of Richmond, Virginia, the Poe Studies Association (of Penn State), as well as numerous American patriotic organizations, such as the American Legion, Post 29 (Kona, Hawaii), and the U. S. S. Hornet Foundation (Alameda NAS, California). He is a California licensed private investigator and California licensed firearms instructor, retired to Hawaii, where he devotes his time to writing.

Robert Densmore Brill traces Edgar Allan Poes's
Ulster-Scots connection.