David Poe, Junior. was an American actor and the father of Edgar Allan Poe.
Background
David Poe, Junior. was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, David Poe, Senior, was well known for his patriotic self-sacrifice as a quartermaster during the American Revolution, paying for supplies out of his own pocket, including $500 for clothing for the troops.
Career
The younger David Poe, on the other hand, defied his family"s wishes to become a lawyer and became an actor instead. In 1806, David Junior. married Elizabeth "Eliza" Arnold Hopkins, whose first husband, Charles Hopkins, had died six months before. One critic said of Eliza and David, "the lady was young and pretty, and evinced talent both as a singer and actress.
The gentleman was literally nothing." The couple"s eldest child, William Henry Leonard Poe, was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 30, 1807, just nine months after their wedding.
A bad-tempered alcoholic for most of his adult life, David Junior. abandoned the stage and his family some time before July 1809, disappearing from historical record. In David"s absence, Eliza gave birth to a third child, a daughter, in December 1810, but the true paternity of Rosalie Poe remains uncertain.
According to author Susan Archer Talley Weiss, Poe died on December 11, 1811, only three days after Eliza"s death. After Eliza"s death in 1811, the three children were split up.