^{Note 1 in page 230} E.g., Killis Campbell, The Mind of Poe and Other Studies (Cambridge, 1933), p. 29.

^{Note 2 in page 230} “Poe and the Chess Automaton,” American Literature, xi, 138–151 (May, 1939).

^{Note 3 in page 230} I wish to express my obligation to Professor T. O. Mabbott, who near the outset of my inquiry turned over his notes on “The Mystery of Marie Roget” collected for the Columbia edition, and who afterwards gave generously of information and counsel.

^{Note 4 in page 230} Mary E. Phillips, Edgar Allan Poe the Man (Chicago, 1926), i, 749–750 (Cf. note 81); Hervey Allen, Israfel (New York, 1927), ii, 510, n. 585. For brief expressions of opinion on the story, see Poe's Contributions to the Columbia Spy, ed. Jacob E. Spannuth and T. O. Mabbott (Pottsville, 1929), p. 70; John W. Robertson, Bibliography of the Writings of Edgar A. Poe (San Francisco, 1934), ii, 205.

^{Note 5 in page 230} Edgar Allan Poe a Study in Genius (New York, 1926), Chap, v, pp. 88–118.

^{Note 6 in page 230} As far as I can ascertain (I shall not be surprised if someone can add to the list), the more substantial secondary accounts have been: i. Andrew Jackson Davis, Tale of a Physician (Boston, 1886) (first published 1869), Chaps, xxviii–xxix, pp. 192–200; ii. Alfred Trumble, “The Beautiful Cigar Girl,” National Police Gazette, xxxviii, no. 189, p. 3 (May, 1881), same in his Great Crimes and Criminals of America (New York, 1881), pp. 7–10; iii. “The Murder of Mary Rogers. A Mystery That Was Never Solved—How Poe Preserved It in a Story,” New York Tribune, Oct. 29, 1885, p. 5, col. 4 (courtesy, Mr. Chester E. Riese); iv. Thomas Byrnes, Professional Criminals of America (New York, 1886), pp. 344–347; v. George W. Walling, Recollections of a New York Chief of Police (New York, 1887), pp. 26–29; vi. New York Evening Journal, June 29, 1897, p. 27, col. 1; vii. Will M. Clemens, “The Tragedy of Mary Rogers,” Era Magazine, xiv, 450–463 (Nov., 1904) (Cf. note 81); viii. Thomas S. Duke, Celebrated Criminal Cases of America (San Francisco, 1910), pp. 577–582; ix. Charles E. Pearce, Unsolved Murder Mysteries (London, 1924), pp. 225–245; x. Edward Van Every, Sins of New York as “Exposed” by the Police Gazette (New York, 1930), pp. 95–104; xi. Edmund Pearson, “Mary Rogers and a Heroine of Fiction,” Vanity Fair, xxxii, no. 5, pp. 59, 110 (July, 1929), same in his Instigation of the Devil (New York, 1930), pp. 177–185; xii. Winthrop D. Lane, “The Mystery of Mary Rogers,” Collier's, lxxxv, no. 10, pp. 19, 50, 52 (March 8, 1930); xiii. Russell Crouse, Murder Won't Out (Garden City, 1932), pp. 52–74.

Joseph H. Ingraham, The Beautiful Cigar Girl; or, the Mysteries of Broadway (New York, n.d. [Ingraham died 1860]), esp. pp. 53, 54, 65, 70, includes obvious reminiscences of Mary Rogers, but in the main has no bearing on the case.

I have read all these except vi, of which I am unable to find a copy. The article is said to be illustrated and to include recollections of a Judge Daly.

^{Note 7 in page 231} Sunday Mercury, Aug. 1, 1841, p. 2, col. 4. The Mercury later (August 8, p. 2, col. 3; Aug. 15, p. 2, col. 1; Aug. 29, p. 2, col. 1) boasts of its August 1 article as the first to arouse public attention; Brother Jonathan agrees (Aug. 28, p. 2, col. 8—p. 3, col. 1); and so does Poe (Works, ed. James A. Harrison, New York, 1902, v, 11).

There had been an earlier, brief notice in the Commercial Advertiser the day after the discovery of the body, July 29, p. 1, col. 6.

^{Note 8 in page 231} I have read the following papers through August and most or all of September, a few through part of October: Brother Jonathan, Commercial Advertiser, Morning Courier and New York Enquirer, Express (complementary files of Evening and Daily or morning issues), Herald, Journal of Commerce, Sunday Mercury, Evening Post, Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post, Standard (to Aug. 14). Charles E. Pearce (note 6, ix) gives an account of the Tribune for the same period.

^{Note 9 in page 233} Winthrop D. Lane (note 6, xii, p. 52) found that the coroner's verdict in the Hudson County Courthouse contained nothing further.

^{Note 10 in page 233} According to the accounts of the inquest (A) the names were “John Bertram” and “William Waller” (or “Walker,” Sunday Mercury, Aug. 8, p. 2, col. 2). These doubtless were two persons who had something to do with bringing the body to shore, just as a man named Luther who broke the news to Payne is recorded by Payne (B) as saying that he himself had found the body and is described in an early, short account (e.g. Commercial Advertiser, Aug. 2, p. 2, col. 3; cf. note 58) as having been with two friends in a sailboat when he found it. Mallin and Boulard deposed that they sighted the body from the shore and ran for a rowboat. I choose this little nest of inconsistencies merely for illustration. The conclusions which I present in this article rest on arguments that I have frequently had to make elliptical, and the reader who should trace my steps through but one or two newspapers might think me strangely arbitrary.

^{Note 11 in page 233} The Herald followed this feature article with two others: Sept. 21, p. 2, col. 3, with cut of the interior of the thicket; Sept. 24, p. 1, cols. 3–4, with panorama of Weehawken and the river. Brother Jonathan, Sept. 25, p. 2, col. 8, casts doubt on much of this evidence, especially that of Adam Wall the stage-driver. Cf. note 41.

^{Note 12 in page 233} Letter of Poe to George Roberts, editor of the Boston Mammoth Notion, Philadelphia, June 4, 1842 (Works, xvii, 112). Poe used similar words in a letter of the same date to J. Evans Snodgrass, editor of the Baltimore Saturday Visiter (ms. Pierpont Morgan Library). Professor Mabbott tells me that a third letter of the kind is said to survive, to the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. And despite the denial which is part of Poe's fiction (Works, v, 65), the drift of the story is in clear accord with his letter to Roberts. He clinched the matter in the first of the notes added to the 1845 version (Cf. note 59): “the investigation of the truth was the object” (Works, v, 1). There can be no doubt that Poe at least pretended to believe that he had solved the mystery.

^{Note 13 in page 233} Works, v, 9. For the affidavits of Payne's whereabouts on the fatal day (ibid., p. 11), Poe could have used: e.g. Herald, Aug. 18, p. 1. col. 1; Brother Jonathan, Aug. 21, p. 2, col. 6, though of course what he adds about verifying the affidavits (Works, v, 40) is part of his fiction.

^{Note 14 in page 233} Works, v, 9.

^{Note 15 in page 233} Works, v, 10–11, 57.

^{Note 16 in page 233} Works, v, 11.

^{Note 17 in page 234} Works, v, 16–18. There is at least one grave inaccuracy here; see note 45. The Saturday Evening Post description of the clothes in the thicket is from the issue of Sept. 25, p. 2, col. 3, which, although Poe (Works, v, 37) describes the paragraph as collected “from this paper and that,” is from the Herald, Sept. 17, p. 2, col. 4 (H) and presents details that are not in any of the earlier, brief accounts (G).

^{Note 18 in page 234} Works, v, 19.

^{Note 19 in page 234} It seems almost certain that he missed the depositions of Mallin and Boulard (E) (printed in most papers on the same page with Crommelin's). According to Mallin and Boulard there was no jewelry on the body. Poe says (Works, v, 38): “You cannot fail to have remarked the extreme laxity of the examination of the corpse. . . . Had the deceased any articles of jewellery about her person upon leaving home? if so, had she any when found?”

^{Note 20 in page 234} See notes 23, 24. Cf. notes 7, 13, 18, 20, 74.

The account of Mary's life which Poe gives (Works, v, 4) does not square well with those which I have read, the most explicit in Brother Jonathan, Aug. 14, p. 3, cols. 5, 6, 7. The story that Poe himself had bought cigars from Mary Rogers I have not been able to trace earlier than 1887 (note 6, v, p. 28).

This may be the place to observe that the sequence of dates which Poe uses for his story (Works, v, 7–9, 16, 40–42, 47, 50) running from June 22 as the day of the murder to July 13 the day when the Prefect calls on Dupin (and including June 31 !) is not commensurate with the actual sequence and involves at least one grievous inconsistency (Cf. note 40).

^{Note 21 in page 234} Works, v, 11,

^{Note 22 in page 235} Works, v, 12–14, 31; Brother Jonathan, Aug. 28, p. 2, col. 8; p. 3, cols. 1–2. The daily edition of the paper was called the Tattler, and the Brother Jonathan in this Saturday issue quotes from the Tattler of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so that Poe is able to speak of a “subsequent number of the paper” (Works, v, 15).

^{Note 23 in page 235} It was the fact that one or two of Crommelin's statements about Payne and the relatives were challenged that led Brother Jonathan to shift the attack to Crommelin himself (Aug. 28, p. 3, cols. 1–2). Poe takes this up in passing (Works, v, 15, 34) and explains Crommelin's behaviour as that of a romantic busybody.

^{Note 24 in page 235} Works, v, 22–23, 29–30.

^{Note 25 in page 235} Works, v, 24–28, Cf. George E. Male, Elements of Juridical or Forensic Medicine (London, 1818), p. 186; Theodric R. Beck and John B. Beck, Elements of Medical Jurisprudence (Albany, 1835), ii, 163. Neither of these is detailed enough to be Poe's source. But I find an almost point for point agreement with Poe in a later authority, Alfred S. Taylor, Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence (Philadelphia, 1873), II, 24–27. That there was among coroners and less learned medical practitioners considerable disagreement about how soon a drowned body would float may be seen from an insurance trial reported in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, New Series, xxvi, 263–265 (July, 1853).

I am indebted to Dr. Howard Haggard for advice on this matter and on matters concerned in notes 43, 55, 72.

The passage about drowned bodies cited by Poe from the Commercial Advertiser is in the number for Aug. 25, p. 2, col. 2.

^{Note 26 in page 235} Works, v, 31–32.

^{Note 27 in page 235} Works, v, 21; Brother Jonathan, Aug. 28, p. 3, col. 1.

^{Note 28 in page 235} Besides Commercial Advertiser, Aug. 25, p. 2, col. 2, which Poe himself quotes, there were: Evening Express, Aug. 24, p. 3, col. 2; Courier and Enquirer, Aug. 24, p. 2, col. 3; Herald, Aug. 25, p. 1, col. 5; Aug. 26, p. 2, col. 2; Journal of Commerce, Aug. 26, p. 2, col. 2; Sunday Mercury, Aug. 29, p. 2, col. 1.

^{Note 29 in page 236} Works, v, 45; cf. ibid., p. 16. The passage which Poe quotes from Journal of Commerce, Aug. 23, p. 2, cols. 2–3 and his rebuttal (Works, v, 16, 25–26) form a minor cul-de-sac. The Journal of Commerce argues that Mary could not have walked far without some one having seen her, that therefore the murder must have been committed near her mother's house. Poe argues against this fairly, except that he makes Mary go out at nine o'clock (when people were dressing for church and the streets were empty), whereas Payne tells us in his deposition that she went out about ten o'clock (when, as Poe says, the people would begin to throng the streets). The Journal of Commerce was not the only paper during August to maintain that Mary had been murdered in the city (See, for example, Courier and Enquirer, Aug. 24, p. 2, col. 3; Evening Post, Aug. 6, p. 2, col. 4; Evening Express, Aug. 9, p. 3, col. 5; Saturday Evening Post, Aug. 28, p. 2, col. 2), but later, with the developments in Weehawken, the side of the river on which the crime had occurred ceased to be an issue.

^{Note 30 in page 236} Works, v, 41.

^{Note 31 in page 236} Works, v, 45–46.

^{Note 32 in page 236} Poe states a principle which he could have read in Laplace's Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilités (Pierre-Simon de Laplace, Théorie Analytique des Probabilités, Paris, 1820, Introduction, pp. x–xi): that equally probable independent events (e.g., throws of a given number with dice) remain equally probable at any point in any series. “The error here involved,” continues Poe “—a gross error redolent of mischief—I cannot pretend to expose within the limits assigned me at present; and with the philosophical it needs no exposure.” It is hardly necessary to say that Poe stands almost alone among the “philosophical.” See for example William Burnside, Theory of Probability (Cambridge, 1928), p. 6; J. V. Uspensky, Introduction to Mathematical Probability (New York, 1937), p. 44.

French writers of Poe's time hailed him with delight as a pupil of Laplace (Léon Lemonnier, Edgar Poe et la Critique Française de 1845 à 1875, Paris, 1928, pp. 156–158).

^{Note 33 in page 236} For a discussion of experimental probability, see Thornton C. Fry, Probability and its Engineering Uses (New York, 1928), pp. 117–127. I am indebted to Mr. Robert M. Ryder for advice on this matter.

^{Note 34 in page 237} See, for example, Herald, Aug. 9, p. 2, col. 6; Aug. 11, p. 2, col. 2; Aug. 12, p. 2, cols. 1–2; Evening Post, Aug. 17, p. 2, col. 2; and references in notes 35 and 36.

^{Note 35 in page 237} The item was widely printed, but nowhere so far as I know in the words which Poe uses. See, for example, Courier and Enquirer, Aug. 16, p. 2, col. 1.

^{Note 36 in page 237} I believe the clearest idea of this may be obtained by consulting Courier and Enquirer, Aug. 10, p. 2, col. 3; Aug. 11, p. 2, col. 2; Aug. 12, p. 2, col. 3.

^{Note 37 in page 237} E.g., Evening Express, Sept. 30, p. 3, col. 1; Journal of Commerce, Sept. 30, p. 2, col. 3; Courier and Enquirer, Sept. 30, p. 2, col. 1; Commercial Advertiser, Sept. 29, p. 2, col. 2; Brother Jonathan, Oct. 2, p. 3, col. 6.

^{Note 38 in page 237} See, for example, Courier and Enquirer, Aug. 3, p. 2, col. 1; Journal of Commerce, Aug. 23, p. 2, col. 3; Aug. 24, p. 2, col. 3; Sept, 3, p. 2, cols. 2–3. The theory is implicit in most of the passages to which I have referred in notes 34, 35, and 36. Russel Crouse (note 6, xiii, p. 68) says that an anonymous pamphlet, given wide circulation at a penny a copy, accused a group of young Broadway gamblers.

^{Note 39 in page 237} Herald, Sept. 24, p. 1, cols. 3–4.

^{Note 40 in page 237} Works, v, 47–52. Poe quotes (ibid., p. 41) as from the Evening Post a paragraph saying that the paper has received several letters arguing that Mary was the victim of one of the gangs that infest the vicinity of the city on Sunday. These letters, says Poe (ibid., p. 50), were received immediately before the finding of the clothes (According to Poe's own dating this is not true) and form part of the same plan to divert attention from the real culprit. I have not been able to find this passage in the Post, nor another, which Poe quotes (ibid., p. 41) as from the Courier and Enquirer, saying that the paper has received letters arguing the guilt of “Mennais”—and which Poe makes part of the same plan (ibid., p. 62). But it would seem that a number of such letters were sent to the papers (Herald, Aug. 11, p. 1, col. 6; Aug. 16, p. 2, col. 4; Brother Jonathan, Aug. 21, p. 2, col. 5). Journal of Commerce, Sept. 3, p. 2, cols. 2–3, prints a letter from a citizen to the mayor, advancing a theory like Poe's, that a certain letter from Pittsburgh had been sent to divert investigation.

“Mennais,” according to Poe (Works, v, 41) “one of the parties originally suspected and arrested, but discharged through total lack of evidence,” may be Joseph W. Morse, whose arrest, examination and discharge filled the papers from August 16 to 23. If so, Poe's date for the “Courier” paragraph, June 28, six days from his date for the murder, is meaningless.

^{Note 41 in page 238} Brother Jonathan, Sept. 25, p. 2, col. 8, in a long article based on a visit to the spot, had argued that there were no flat rocks inside, no level surface as much as a foot in diameter, that the thicket could be entered only on all-fours, that there were two or three houses within “half call.” The lessee of the property “shakes his head incredulously at the circumstances of the clothes having lain so long in the thicket undisturbed. . . . He never had heard, till he saw it in the prints, of the rails broken down.” Cf. note 11.

^{Note 42 in page 238} Ladies' Companion, xviii, 162 (Feb., 1843).

^{Note 43 in page 238} At this point Poe rightly rejects Dr. Cook's testimony that the girl was violated “by more than two or three persons” (F in my list). This, says Poe, has been ridiculed by all the reputable anatomists of New York. And at least Brother Jonathan, Sept. 4, p. 2, col. 7 spoke of it as “disgustingly ridiculous.” The Herald had made enthusiastic use of it in the campaign against gangs; in one article the doctor was “confident that Mary Rogers was brutally violated by six, or possibly eight ruffians; of that fact, he had ocular proof, but which is unfit for publication” (Herald, Aug. 16, p. 2, col. 4). Cf. note 73.

^{Note 44 in page 238} Ladies' Companion, xviii, 164 (Feb., 1843).

^{Note 45 in page 239} Works, v, 54–57. Poe makes three other points in this connection: 1. Mrs. Loss directs suspicion towards one gang out of many who must have been in the vicinity on the fatal day because that gang consumed her cakes and drink without paying. According to the Herald, Sept. 17, p. 2, col. 3 (H on my list) the gang had done this not at Mrs. Loss's but at a shanty next door. 2. Mrs. Loss saw the gang depart from Weehawken about dusk, but it was after dark that she heard a woman's screams. According to the Herald both these things happened after dark; it is not said which was earlier. As a matter of fact the gang in question is not mentioned as one under special suspicion but as one group among a great “number of fire rowdies, butcher boys, soap-locks, and all sorts of riotous miscreants over at Weehawken.” 3. Inasmuch as a large reward had been offered and a full pardon for turning state's evidence, it is incredible that some one of a gang should not have made a betrayal. (Cf. Works, v, 6.) On Aug. 11 a public meeting of citizens had been held and a reward of $445.00 raised (e.g. Evening Post, Aug. 12, p. 2, col. 2). On August 31 Governor Seward proclaimed a reward of $750.00 (e.g. Brother Jonathan, Sept. 4, p. 2, col. 6). The offer of pardon may have been somewhat later; I have not seen it in any newspaper, but it is put near the end of September by Frederick W. Seward, Autobiography of William H. Seward (New York, 1877), p. 566.

^{Note 46 in page 239} Herald, Sept. 24, p. 1, col. 5.

^{Note 47 in page 239} Works, v, 40.

^{Note 48 in page 239} Since the notes in which Poe supplies the names of the papers would seem to have been prepared especially for the 1845 version (Cf. note 60), and veryl ikely from memory, the remarkable thing is not that some of the references cannot be found but that so many can be.

Poe doubtless adapted his quotations. Cf. note 35. In the first version of his story (Ladies Companion, xviii, 97, Dec., 1842) the quotation from the “Express” begins “Two or three years since.” This he changes to “About three years and a half ago” for the 1845 version (Works, v, 40). (Cf. p. 239).

^{Note 49 in page 240} Sunday Mercury, Aug. 1, p. 2, col. 4.

^{Note 50 in page 240} Herald, Aug. 3, p. 2, col. 4. This sounds much like Poe's quotation.

^{Note 51 in page 240} Commercial Advertiser, Aug. 25, p. 2, col. 2.

^{Note 52 in page 240} Journal of Commerce, Aug. 26, p. 2, col. 3.

^{Note 53 in page 240} Brother Jonathan, Aug. 14, p. 3, col. 5. On the same page (col. 7) Brother Jonathan quoted from the Sunday News, “It was early in the summer of 1838, that many of the Reporters for the public papers frequented this store, and one undertook to practice a cruel and unjustifiable hoax.” The first “disappearance” of Mary Rogers occurred on Thursday, Oct. 4, 1838. The next day her mother is said to have appeared at the coroner's office bringing a suicide note left on Mary's dressing table. It was thought that a certain gentleman had paid her particular attention and then had left the city. The New York Journal of Commerce, Oct. 5, 1838, p. 2, col. 3 is perhaps the source of the story, but it was widely printed on the same and succeeding days. Within a day or two a “correspondent” who said he was “well acquainted with the parties” concerned had written a letter to the Times saying the suicide note was a hoax “by some evil-disposed person,” that Mary had only gone to visit a friend in Brooklyn and had now returned. (Times quoted by New York Spectator, Oct. 11, 1838, p. 4, col. 2.) But the Weekly Herald, Oct. 13, 1838, p. 1, col. 2, still deplored “the recent affair of the young girl in Anderson's cigar store.”

^{Note 54 in page 240} J. H. Whitty, Bookman, xxxvi, 604 (Feb., 1913). Cf. ibid., p. 355 (Dec., 1912).

^{Note 55 in page 241} Summed up in a paragraph, Works, v, 60. His additional argument about the boat stolen from the barge office is more questionable (ibid., pp. 42, 62–63). A search of the Standard for Poe's paragraph about the boat has been in vain. In order to have any bearing on the case the paragraph would have to appear in the week following July 25. Poe could have got the idea of a boat from Herald, Sept. 24, p. 1, col. 3, where “G” in the panorama of Weehawken is identified as “the spot at the edge of the river, below Ludlow's, where the boat lay in which it is believed the dead body of Mary Rogers was carried into the stream.” In contending that the bruises on the back of the corpse were made by the ribs of the boat Poe disregards the testimony of Dr. Cook. “Mayor. ‘Might or might not those marks . . . have been caused by the body coming in contact with some hard substance after death . . . ?’ Dr. C. ‘They could not. Because the coagulation was in the cellular tissues’” (Herald, Aug. 17, p. 2, col. 4). Cf. Theodric R. Beck and John B. Beck, Elements of Medical Jurisprudence (Albany, 1835), ii, 13–17.

^{Note 56 in page 241} Herald, Aug. 17, p. 2, col. 4. Some confusion arose from the fact that there was also a rope around the body—put there by those who found the body in order to secure it (testimony of Dr. Cook and of Mallin and Boulard, E and F in my list). The Sunday Mercury, Aug. 8, p. 2, col. 3, says that Justice Matsell thought the knots in this rope were “made by seafaring men.”

^{Note 57 in page 241} Herald, Sept. 17, p. 2, col. 3. The conception of Mary's lover may have owed something to an early story which originated in the Tribune, that on the morning of her disappearance she had met a young man at a corner of Theatre Alley and had gone with him toward Barclay Street as if for an excursion to Hoboken (e.g. Commercial Advertiser, Aug. 2, p. 2, col. 3; Brother Jonathan, Aug. 4, p. 3, col. 5). Charles E. Pearce (note 6, ix, pp. 27–28) quotes directly from the Tribune of August 2.

^{Note 58 in page 241} He was William Keekuck, Kiekuck, Kickuck, Kurkuk, Kukuck, or Kuck, who was apparently taken three times by the police from the U.S.S. North Carolina (e.g. Courier and Enquirer, Aug. 5, p. 2, col. 2; Aug. 6, p. 2, col. 2; Aug. 13, p. 2, col. 3; his deposition, Evening Express, Aug. 13, p. 3, cols. 1–2).

^{Note 59 in page 242} The story “was composed at a distance from the scene of the atrocity,” says Poe himself, “and with no other means of investigation than the newspapers afforded. Thus much escaped the writer of which he could have availed himself had he been upon the spot and visited the localities” (note to 1845 version, Works, v, 1).

^{Note 60 in page 242} Publishers' Circular, viii, no. 188 (July 15, 1845), pp. 203, 206. Cf. George E. Woodberry, The Life of Edgar Allan Poe (Boston, 1909), ii, 148, 406; Hervey Allen, Israfel (New York, 1927), ii, 658.

^{Note 61 in page 242} Ladies' Companion, xviii, 162 (Feb., 1843); Works, v, 47.

^{Note 62 in page 242} Ladies' Companion, xviii, 164 (Feb., 1843); Works, v, 54.

^{Note 63 in page 242} Ladies' Companion, xviii, 165 (Feb., 1843); Works, v, 60. In conformity with this plan two other passages must be adjusted: “The solitary murderer, having borne the corpse, for some distance, (whether from the thicket or elsewhere) . . . ”; “Circumstances . . . arising, as we have imagined, after quitting the thicket (if the thicket it was) . . .” (Ladies' Companion, xviii, 165, Feb., 1843; Works, v, 57, 58). The parentheses are Poe's and mark insertions.

^{Note 64 in page 243} Ladies' Companion, xviii, 167 (Feb., 1843); Works, v, 64. In the first part of the story occur such expressions as “The atrocity of this murder (for it was at once evident that murder had been committed . . ”; “No one—not even L'Etoile—disputes the murder committed on the body found.” These Poe retains (Works, v, 5, 29); the first may be supposed to reflect general opinion; the second, to be spoken by Dupin before he has completed his reasoning.

^{Note 65 in page 243} Ladies' Companion, xviii, 166 (Feb., 1843); Works, v, 62.

^{Note 66 in page 243} Ladies' Companion, xviii, 164 (Feb., 1843); Works, v, 53–54. To avoid confusion I have put the words “might not” in Roman letters, where Poe uses italics.

^{Note 67 in page 243} Ladies' Companion, xviii, 165 (Feb., 1843): Works, v, 60.

^{Note 68 in page 243} Ladies' Companion, xviii, 98 (Dec., 1842); Works, v, 44.

^{Note 69 in page 243} Ladies' Companion, xviii, 98 (Dec. 1842); Works, v, 44, 45. The word “never” in the second quotation is italicized by Poe.

^{Note 70 in page 243} Ladies' Companion, xviii, 163, 165 (Feb., 1843); Works, v, 53, 60.

^{Note 71 in page 244} Hervey Allen, Israfel (New York, 1927), ii, 597, 619.

^{Note 72 in page 244} Herald, Aug. 17, p. 1, col. 4. “He said that previous to this shocking outrage, she had evidently been a person of chastity and correct habits; that her person was horribly violated by more than two or three persons; he gave sufficient reasons for coming to this conclusion. He also stated distinctly, that he examined fully on that point, and found that there was not the slightest trace of pregnancy.” Cf. note 43. The earlier report to the inquest, as expurgated in the Herald, was: “that from marks and bruises, and . . . there were evident signs of the body having been violated; that. . .; and that the bruises about the head and face, as well as . . . was sufficient to cause death, . . .” (Herald, Aug. 6, p. 2, col. 2). It appears by no means sure that Dr. Cook made any dissection.

^{Note 73 in page 244} This may have originated in the Evening Post, Aug. 16, p. 2, col. 2, where it is attributed directly to “Officer Cockefair,” who “learned it from the colored servant woman.” Versions appeared in the Herald, Aug. 25, p. 1, col. 5 and Brother Jonathan, Aug. 28, p. 2, col. 8. Poe refers to it twice in his story (Works, v, 9, 43), but makes no inference from it.

^{Note 74 in page 244} Evening Express, Aug. 14, 1841, p. 3, cols. 3–4. Cf. Evening Post, Aug. 14, p. 2, col. 3.

^{Note 75 in page 244} Police Gazette, i, 92 (Nov. 8, 1845). The correspondent may be an editorial device.

^{Note 76 in page 244} Police Gazette, Feb. 21, 1846, quoted by Edward Van Every (note 6, x, pp. 93–94).

^{Note 77 in page 245} New York Morning News, Feb. 24, 1846, p. 2, col. 4. Edward Van Every (note 6, x, p. 98) says this was quoted in the Police Gazette, Feb. 28, 1846.

^{Note 78 in page 245} Works, v, 1.

^{Note 79 in page 245} Tribune, Nov. 18, 1842, p. 2, col. 4 (courtesy, Mr. W. E. Peck and Mr. Cullen Colton); copied in Commercial Advertiser, Nov. 18, 1842, p. 1, col. 7; and in Herald, Nov. 21, 1842, p. 2, col. 2.

^{Note 80 in page 245} Tribune, Nov. 21, 1842, p. 2, col. 4. The Tribune backs water: “We gave the facts as they were told us by two Magistrates of this city.” The Herald pounces upon this and demands the names of the two magistrates—in vain. “TWICE—We again demand of the ‘Tribune’ to give us the names of the two magistrates who furnished them with their story about Mary Rogers! Twice” (Nov. 24, 1842, p. 2, col. 2; Nov. 26; 1842, p. 2, col. 2).

^{Note 81 in page 246} Herald, Nov. 20, 1842, p. 2, cols. 3–4. Justice Merritt was of the opinion that “the murder of the said Mary C. Rogers, was perpetrated in a house at Weehawken . . . then kept by one Frederica Loss alias Kellenbarack . . . and her three sons . . . all three of whom this deponent has reason to believe are worthless and profligate characters. . . .”

Will M. Clemens (note 6, vii) visited the Hoboken neighborhood in 1904, talked with a number of survivors from 1841, and would seem to have found a well established tradition that Mary and an escort had been murdered in the tavern by the three sons of Mrs. Loss (pp. 459, 462–463). This tradition he pretends to corroborate by examination of “the yellow files of eight newspapers” (p. 455). His account is riddled with error, if not with deliberate falsification. Let me give one example: the body of Mary's escort, he says, was thrown into the river with hers. He quotes in proof an “obscure item” from the newspapers of August 5, about a “tall, swarthy” man, in “white shirt, silk vest, dark pantaloons, ‘morocco’ shoes and worsted hose,” found floating at the foot of Barclay Street on August 3. Is not this a man in “morocco shoes, worsted hose, drab cloth pantaloons, white shirt and satin vest,” found on August 3—but not “tall” or “swarthy,” and not at the foot of Barclay Street, but “in the East River, at the foot of Catharine Street” (Evening Express, Aug. 4, 1841, p. 3, col. 3; Evening Post for the Country, Aug. 7, 1841, p. 1, col. 3)?

This unscrupulous article is probably the source of an opinion expressed by Robin V. Costello in a letter to the New York Evening Post, January 10, 1920, Section Three, p. 11, col. 4. And this letter is the acknowledged source of Mary E. Phillips, Edgar Allan Poe the Man (Chicago, 1926), i, 750.

John Anderson, the tobacco merchant who had employed Mary in his store, late in life believed himself in spiritual communication with her (New York Times, Oct. 16, 1885, p. 8, col. 3). Lane (note 6, xii, p. 52) says that Anderson believed Mary had told him the names of her murderers, but that he refused to disclose them. The litigation over Anderson's will dragged through the courts for more than ten years, and the newspaper accounts are full of references to his alleged insanity, but I have been unable to find Lane's source. (There would seem to be something wrong with the reference in George E. Woodberry, Life of Edgar Allan Poe, Boston, 1909, i, 382–383; cf. New York Tribune, Jan. 11, 1892, p. 3, col. 2.) One story was that Anderson in order to divert suspicion from himself had paid Poe to write “Marie Roget” (New York Tribune, May 27, 1887, p. 2, col. 5).

^{Note 82 in page 246} Letters from George W. Eveleth to Edgar Allan Poe, ed. T. O. Mabbott (New York, 1922), p. 15.

^{Note 83 in page 246} A Confession of the Awful and Bloody Transactions in the Life of Charles Wallace (New Orleans, 1851) contains an account of the death of Mary Rogers (pp. 8–10) which bears every mark of the spurious.

^{Note 84 in page 247} “Letters of Poe to George W. Eveleth,” ed. J. S. Wilson, Alumni Bulletin of the University of Virginia, xvii, 50 (January, 1924).

^{Note 85 in page 247} John H. Ingram, Edgar Allan Poe (London, 1880) i, 235. Professor James Southall Wilson tells me that Ingram's annotated copy of the book supplies nothing further. Mr. John Cook Wyllie says the same of the collection of Ingram papers in the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia.

In his letter Poe puts the term naval officer in quotes, as he does in the story (Works, v, 60), but in the story the reason is that he is referring to the paragraph quoted from the Herald. It is noteworthy that Ingram uses the term without quotes.

A testimony that harmonizes with Poe and Ingram is to be found in the curious Tale of a Physician, 1869, by the occultist Andrew Jackson Davis (note 6, i). In the form of fiction Davis gives a minute account of the death of Mary Rogers at the hands of a professional abortionist in New York City. The wealthy lover Jack Blake has paid all fees and departed for Texas (pp. 192–200, Chaps, xxviii-xxix). Davis had met Poe (Hervey Allen, Israfel, New York, 1927, ii, 758).

Allan Nevins, ed. Diary of Philip Hone, 1828–1851 (New York, 1927), ii, 555, 566, subscribes to the theory of abortion—but tells me that he has no evidence beyond what I present.

^{Note 86 in page 247} Register of the Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the Navy of the United States Including Officers of the Marine Corps (Washington, D. C., 1837–1842), pp. 4–5 for each volume, except 1842, pp. 2–3; A General Register of the Navy and Marine Corps, 1798–1848 (Washington, D. C., 1848), pp. 124–125; D.A.B., “Ambrose Spencer”; “John Canfield Spencer”; Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York, 1900), v, 628; Nathaniel Goodwin, Genealogical Notes (Hartford, 1856), p. 322; U. S. Naval Archives, Appointments, Orders and Resignations, No. 18, p. 301; Officers' Letters, Nov., 1839, no. 184; Aug., 1841, no. 62; Commanders' Letters, July to Dec., 1838, nos. 91, 100, 113, 120, 127; July to Dec., 1839, nos. 82, 125, 142; Jan. to June, 1840, nos. 1, 3, 73; July, 1840, nos. 2, 33, 44, 68, 120; Captains' Letters, Dec., 1841, no. 41; Jan., 1843, no. 71; Resignations of Officers of the U. S. Navy, 1841–1850, no. 87. For guidance in this matter I am indebted to Mr. Julian P. Boyd, Mr. Charles O. Paullin and Mr. Malcolm D. Rudd.

For Philip Spencer see Proceedings in the Naval Court Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie (New York, 1844), esp. pp. 4, 192, 202–205, 263, 325. The brig Somers arrived at New York Dec. 25, 1842; the court martial of Commander Mackenzie ended April 1, 1843. The case was widely discussed. It seems not impossible that the notoriety of Philip Spencer (who became midshipman in November, 1841) may somehow have produced Ingram's statement.