American writer and master of the macabre Edgar Allan Poe died at age 40 on October 7, 1849, in Baltimore, where he had traveled from Richmond, Virginia, in late September. The cause of his death was still uncertain in the 21st century.
The month before he died, he had some forebodings of death. In early October he was hospitalized after he had turned up in a Baltimore tavern and became unresponsive in what onlookers assumed was an alcoholic stupor. After he died a local newspaper reported that the cause had been “congestion of the brain.” Several theories propose different causes, including complications from alcoholism, diabetes, and heart failure. He was buried in Westminster Presbyterian churchyard in Baltimore.