A mysterious visitor visited the grave of Edgar Allan Poe Saturday.
This year the man known as "Poe toaster" still marked his occasion without being spotted, according to media reports Monday.
On the day, over 150 people standing outside the cemetery of Westminster Presbyterian Church, but the mysterious man still stole away into the darkness after placed three red roses and a half-filled bottle of cognac.
Sam Porpora, a former church historian who led the fight to preserve the cemetery, claimed last summer that he cooked up the idea of the "Poe toaster" in the 1970s as a publicity stunt.
"We did it, myself and my tour guides," Porpora, a former advertising executive, said in August. "It was a promotional idea."
However, Jeff Jerome, curator for the Poe House and Museum, disputed Porpora's claims and said the tribute began in 1949 at the latest, pointing to a 1950 article in The (Baltimore) Evening Sun that mentions "an anonymous citizen who creeps in annually to place an empty bottle (of excellent label)" against the gravestone.
Poe, who wrote poems and horror stories including "The Raven" and "The Telltale Heart," died Oct. 7, 1849, in Baltimore at the age of 40 after collapsing in a tavern.
Source: Xinhua/Agencies
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