Happy Birthday, Susan

Happy birthday to you–how old are you?

While writing Our Susan’s biography, her age–her birth year–has been the most difficult piece of her life to verify.

I’ve been quite excited to find a dozen anthologies of poetry and other collections that include biographical sketches of varying length. While providing a great deal of information, they disagree about the year of her birth. Two journal articles written approximately 35 years ago state quite confidently they solved the mystery of Susan’s birthday but they disagree not only with the other articles but disagree with each other as well. I am of the strong opinion that the two journal articles are no more–if not less–reliable than the biographical sketches they claimed to discredit.

First, I’ll demonstrate the weakness of the journal articles and, second, examine the sketches–which will then be on equal, if not higher, ground as regards to credibility–to establish a timeline based on what we know as fact to better estimate her actual birth year.

The two journal articles are:

• “True Birthdate and the Hitherto Unpublished Deathdate of Susan Archer Talley Weiss” by John C. Miller, from the Marginalia section of the June 1977 issue of Poe Studies written sixty years after her death.
• “Susan Archer Talley Weiss: An Untold Story” by L. Moody Sims Jr. which appeared in the Spring 1980 issue of The Richmond Literature and History Quarterly sixty-three years after her death.

“True Birthdate”
Here is the key–and quite cocky–passage:

A. H. Quinn describes Susan Archer Talley at this meeting as “a young woman, whose verses Poe had praised and who had achieved the immortality of being included in Griswold’s Female Poets of America.” [See Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1941), p. 622]. But although Quinn expresses doubt about her reliability as a Poe biographer, he overlooks the point that, if she had been born in 1835, she would have “achieved immortality” in Griswold’s anthology (published in 1848 as Quinn certainly knew) at age thirteen. T. O. Mabbott says she was “a poetess of eighteen” when she first met Poe, thus making her birthdate 1831 instead of 1835. [See Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, I (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1969), p. 567]. The truth o’ the matter is that Susan Archer Talley was born in 1822 and thus was neither a “shy and dreamy girl,” “a young woman,” nor a poetess of “eighteen” when she met Poe in 1849 — she was more than twenty seven years old.

Miller’s sources are an obituary in the Richmond Times-Dispatch of April 8, 1917 which states she died, “in her ninety-sixth year” and her gravestone which gives her birth as February 14, 1822.

Miller’s article concludes with, “No further proof is needed that Susan Archer Talley Weiss was born in 1822, not in 1835, as all standard reference books and library card catalogues, including the Library of Congress, now read.”

“Untold Story”
The following is from the equally over-confident “Susan Archer Talley Weiss: An Untold Story” by L. Moody Sims Jr. which appeared in the Spring 1980 issue of The Richmond Literature and History Quarterly.

“Creating a biographical sketch of Susan Archer Talley Weiss is an experience in itself. So much contradictory and confusing information was written about her during her lifetime that virtually no statement made can be accepted at face value. Not one of the numerous accounts which vary her date of birth between 1822 and 1835 supplies the correct date; her death certificate alone provides it and the 1850 U.S. Census confirms it: February 14, 1825 … She was the oldest of three children born to Thomas Talley and Eliza Archer.”

Every age Sims gives in the article is based on this date. Unfortunately, the author of this otherwise extremely rich article didn’t provide any citations or sources with the exception of the 1850 US Census–which, as we’ll see, he misquotes.

Evidence in Journal Articles Examined
I’m going to address each point these authors make directly relating to her age:

• Death Certificate validity
• Gravestone validity
• 1850 US Census as well as every other US Census I have found

Susan’s Death Certificate
What is the source of the date on her death certificate? She died in 1917 so I think it’s safe to say anyone who would know for sure is dead. I have yet to find a death certificate for her and, if I do say so myself, I spend a lot of time and effort looking for these things. I might add that there are no citations or verifiable sources mentioned in the article.

Her Gravestone
Please see preceding paragraph followed by the next.

Son, Stuart Archer Weiss
It is safe to say her son, with whom she lived much of her adult life, made all the necessary arrangements after her death but if he is the source for the death certificate, what was his source for this date? Susan would be the likely answer but if these two authors consider her unreliable, that should be across the board–including as a primary source for Stuart. Also, Stuart should, all things being equal, be a rock-solid primary source but that rock quickly crumbles when we consider he would also be the primary source for his own age as recorded in any given US Census.

United States Census
Sims states the 1850 US Census confirms the birth date supplied on her death certificate. The following mess discredits the US Census as a viable source which might imply the date on her death certificate (for which he doesn’t provide a source) is equally inviable.

1850
The census-taker’s record, taken on December 6, 1850 gives Susan’s age as 24. If we consider this source definitive, Susan was born—according to this census and my math—in 1826, not 1825 like Sims insists. An honest mistake on his part? I’m sure it was. But it’s hard to be completely forgiving and graceful when Sims was so cocky and was pointing fingers at what he considered shoddy research. So, in Sims’ own words, his research is also that in which “virtually no statement made can be accepted at face value.”

1880
The 1880 census-taker, on June 10, reports Susan’s age as 60–making her birth year 1820. This not only extends our total range by two years but might confuse someone reading Sims’ article which bases it’s certainty on the 1850 US Census which disagrees with the 1880 Census and, lest we forget, is misquoted by Sims anyway. Stuart is recorded as 18-years-old making his birth-year, according to this census, 1862. If this is “accepted at face value” we would have to both question paternity and make Susan not only in her early 40’s but pregnant during her physically demanding Civil War adventures including her time as a Prisoner-of-War.

1910
The census-taker, on May 20, reports Susan’s age as 75–making her birth year 1835 just like most of her biographers state. Stuart is recorded as 45-years-old making his birth-year, according to this census, 1865 which is, by all accounts, completely incorrect. But who’s counting?

I might also point out that this differs with her gravestone and the alleged death certificate by about fourteen years. The only real source for the information contained on those two documents–if they both actually exist–is Stuart who was also available for this document as well as the 1880 census.

1920
The census-taker, in January, reports Stuart as 55-years-old making his birth-year, according to this census, 1865.

1930
The census-taker, on April 5, reports Stuart as 68-years-old making his birth-year, according to this census, 1862. I want to say Stuart should really be an accurate source for this because he’d just celebrated his birthday but we run into the same time-line issues stated under the 1880 Census.

Reliability of Biographical Sketches
Regardless of Susan’s credibility as a source of her own biographical details, she was at least alive and available for consultation when these sketches were written. It is, dare I say, likely she was the source for these pieces. If not her then at least someone who was also alive and closer to the truth than, say, people who lived days or decades after she (and any other viable witnesses) died.  There’s some variance to the dates in these accounts and I’m also giving some benefit of the doubt to Susan or anyone else who says “about such-and-such an age.” I’m much more forgiving to people who say “about” than those who say “the truth o’ the matter” and other such cocky statements. Granting a little variance, they are all relatively consistent and close so they agree, for the most part, with each other. The authors are people alive at the time who had access to other people also alive at the time–including Susan. These biographers, such as they were, significantly outnumber the two authors of the two articles written with “evidence” far more flimsy well over 100 years later.

Yes, I must concede that many of these sources give her birth year as 1835. Miller is correct that the work of a thirteen year old being featured in Griswold’s anthology might–might–be unlikely. That aside, only five of them give the year 1835 and even those that do seem give her age at certain key events consistent with each other and the other biographies. It may have been a typo the first time and lazy research for those that followed. We know from Poe’s biographies that biographers are a lazy bunch. Given that laziness, the consistency of all the other details is even more impressive.

Ages given in the biographical sketches, articles, and interviews are given independent of a birthyear–they had no agenda other than story-telling–so I’ll work backward, as it were, to reverse engineer her birthyear.

Establishing and Examining a Time-line Based on Biographical Sketches

Reading Bridal Ballad
More than one account states Susan was “about seven years of age” she read this poem in the Southern Literary Messenger–her first exposure to Poe. “Bridal Ballad” was published in the January 1837 issue of the SLM which would imply she was born in 1830.

Richmond and Talavera
Talavera was built in 1838. Every account stating an age for her when they moved there states her age as eight years old. So, again, we have 1830.

Persico’s Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies
“An Untold Story” states:

“In 1838, the Talley family moved to Henrico County … the move to Henrico provided Susan with opportunities to overcome her handicaps. She attended Mr. Percico’s [sic] school on Leigh Street where she acquired all of the accomplishments of the day … She also at this time exhibited a genuine talent for painting and her interest in sculpting dates from this period, too.”

By all accounts, she still had her sense of hearing when entering school in Richmond. Consensus is that her schooling there proceeded normally until she became sick and deaf.
Another way we have of verifying the life of the school is irresistible to mention. According to a letter from Margaret K. Ellis of August 19, 1835 one Edgar Allan Poe was in town applying for a teaching position at the Persico Academy. Poe wasn’t chosen and (according to Jackson) his position at the Southern Literary Messenger was a matter of being in the right place at the right time–for once.

Elizabeth Prentiss was a young, passionate, intelligent teacher at Persico’s boarding school for a brief time. An excerpt from a letter to her cousin dated October 12, 1840:

This morning I had a new scholar, a pale, thin little girl who stammers, and when I spoke to her, and she was obliged to answer, the color spread over her face and neck as if she suffered the utmost mortification. I was glad when recess came, to draw her close to my side and to tell her that I had a friend afflicted in the same way, and that consequently, I should know how to understand and pity her. She held my hand fast in hers and the tears came stealing down one after another, as she leaned confidingly upon my shoulder, and I could not help crying too, with mingled feelings of gratitude and sorrow. Certainly it will be delightful to soothe and to console this poor little thing…. You do not like poetry and I have spent the best part of my life in reading or trying to write it. N.P. Willis told me some years ago, that if my husband had a soul, he would love me for the poetical in me, and advised me to save it for him.”

That the excerpt is abridged just as she’s talking about a “little girl who stammers” just kills me. Especially as the excerpt picks up with the topic of poetry. A hunt for her papers is on! Everything from her journal and letters leads me to believe she was a great influence in Talley’s life.

If the child with the speech impediment written about by Elizabeth Prentiss in late 1840 is Susan, this gives Susan a good couple years to become the star pupil all report her to have been. If she was born in 1830 and went deaf during the following year, that would make her eleven at the time of her illness. Biographies I’ve found give her age at this time as:

• Three say 11-years-old
• Two say 10-years-old
• Two say 9-years-old
• One says “early in life”

This range might seem troublesome but for the fact that some of these accounts state she became deaf over time while she was sent to various doctors for treatment. A couple accounts say she lost it quickly and “Untold Story” says she lost it suddenly and completely on February 22, 1834. I find such a specific date quite amusing. Again, no source or even reason is given for that specific date.

Art Prodigy
The range here–for her blossoming and demonstrated talent in drawing, painting, and sculpting (corroborated by others throughout her life who actually saw her work) is 10-12 years old. If the girl Prentiss mentions is Susan, that places her at Persico’s Academy during this period and in one of the few instances “Untold Story” doesn’t specifically state an age, the author says it was while Susan was at Persico’s that she pursued and excelled in these arts.

Writing and Publishing Poetry
All accounts state she began writing poetry when “very young,” most of them saying between the ages of 13-15. Multiple accounts state she wrote her verse without showing anyone for a long period before being discovered.

“Untold Story” states her father showed her work to Benjamin Miner, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, in late 1844. Her first published work, “The Spirit of Beauty,” appeared in the April 1845 issue. Most accounts state she was a regular contributor to the SLM at 16-years-old. In May 1846, just over one year after “Spirit of Beauty” was printed, the SLM published “The Sea-Shell,” their seventh poem by Our Susan. This agrees with what I’m calling a general consensus identifying her birth year as 1830.

“My Sister”
The September 1846 issue of The Southern Literary Messenger included Susan’s poem, “My Sister,” written in June 1846.

I have an only sister,
Fresh in her girlish glee,
For she is only seventeen,
And still is fancy free

I’m going to take this poem literally as being about her actual sister, Eliza, who was, according to the 1850 US Census, two years younger than Susan. If, in the summer of 1846, Eliza is seventeen that makes Susan 19 and born in 1827.

Corresponding with Poe
In 1866, Susan wrote, “At length a time came when I, still a mere child [italics mine], learned that this great being had actually read my verses, and had uttered words of praise, and made a flattering prophecy concerning me, and that all this was in print. And then he wrote a kind and courteous, and equally flattering letter, which I have still among my most cherished mementoes of the past.” Word of Poe’s letters praising her and his personal letter to her were written in 1848.

Meeting Poe
Miller criticizes Mabbot for stating Susan was eighteen when she met Poe. From what we’ve just reviewed, Susan should be exactly eighteen when she finally met her pen-pal face to face in the Fall of 1849.

A 1904 issue of The Literary Collector refers to Susan as “over seventy years of age” and having met Poe at age seventeen.

In March 1906 an interview with Susan was published stating, “Mrs. Von Weiss possesses a brain whose fire her seventy-two years have not diminished. Her memory is perfectly clear. We can safely assume the interview and writing of the article took place at least two weeks before the magazine hit the stands and let’s assume it was written less than a year previous. In that time period, according to author T.D. Pendleton, Susan is 72 (and, by his description, still looking pretty damn good) which makes her birth year 1833. Pendleton also relates Susan was a “slip of a girl, just seventeen [italics mine] when Poe met her.” A Susan on, as it were, the edge of seventeen in the Fall of 1849 indicates a birth year of 1832. If this interview did take place after February 14, 1906 and was a very young 72, that would make her birth-year 1834. The statement of age as seventeen is not a quote attributed to Susan, however and we don’t know if it is based on an age or year that Susan gave him or if he’s estimating. Regardless, she’s the direct source for the information and the “give or take a year” range is consistent with the majority of biographies that weren’t written by Poe scholars.

Susan herself wrote, in 1878, the following:

It was a day or two after his arrival that Poe, accompanied by his sister, called on us. He had, some time previous, in a critique on Griswold’s “American Female Poets,” taken flattering notice of my early poems, which had recently appeared in the “Southern Literary Messenger;” and now, on learning from Mrs. Mackenzie that I resided in the neighborhood, he had desired an introduction. The remembrance of that first meeting with the poet is still as vividly impressed upon my mind as though it had been but yesterday. A shy and dreamy girl, scarcely more than a child [italics mine], I had all my life taken an interest in those strange stories and poems of Edgar Poe; and now, with my old childish impression of their author scarcely worn off, I regarded the meeting with an eager, yet shrinking anticipation.

I mention these recollections mostly for the following phrases given on different occasions:

• still a mere child
• slip of a girl
• scarcely more than a child

For whatever it is worth, at the age of 22, Elizabeth Prentiss described herself as “only a little girl.” Prentiss arrived in Richmond to teach at the Persico school on September 30, 1840. I provide the following quote as a comparison of how the two young ladies referred to themselves and their age.

Entry from the personal journal of Elizabeth Prentiss dated October 3, 1840:

How funny it seems here! Everything is so different from home! I foresee that I shan’t live nearly a year under these new influences without changing my old self into something else. Heaven forbid that I should grow old because people treat me as if I were grown up! I hate old young folks. Well! whoever should see me and my scholars would be at a loss to know wherein consists the difference between them and me. I am only a little girl after all.

Art School 1860
From the Daily Richmond Dispatch of December 5, 1860:

“Miss Susan Archer Talley, a well-known Virginia poetess, has arrived in this city, en route for New York, to take the first lessons in sculpture, preparatory to visiting Europe to complete her accomplishment in that art.”

Is it more likely that she entered art school at age 25 (if born in 1835) or at age 35?
Something else keeps gnawing at my brain. Rumor has it that Mr. Persico left for Italy about this time but died at sea. I like to wonder if they would have traveled together but for Susan’s passport application being denied.

The Civil War
During the Civil War, Susan was active as a spy and smuggling arms along with other physically demanding duties. If she were born in 1825, she would have been 37 at the start of the war. I find it difficult to believe a woman of 37 could have done so much that required not only physical effort but, dare I say, the charms of youth.

“The Fair Smuggler” and “Lady of Fashion”
What, exactly, did Susan do as a confederate spy? Well, most of it was quite in the open. She delivered messages to both sides, mediated meetings in the neutral zone in which she lived, got what she and her comrades wanted through visits to Federal camps and with Federal officers and, even after she was arrested, was given to access which she promptly delivered to the confederate command. Is this sort of flirting mercenary one of forty years of age or one in her mid-to-late twenties? Again, perhaps I’m a pig, but I’m betting on the latter.

She also had really bad luck when it came to traveling. After being stranded in New York due to martial law and her passport being denied, she had quite the adventure traveling through hostile territory attempting to get back home. During the war, much of the adventures–and others–related in the previous paragraph involved arduous journies through woods and rivers. After escaping Norfolk she had to hoof it back to Richmond yet again. Lastly, after her son was born, she attempted to–infant in hand–reach New York and her husband.

I hate that I can’t find it but I swear I have an article about her being arrested for smuggling that stated she was in her late twenties which I think is far more believable than a woman in her early forties.

Husband Louis Weiss

• Enlistment records state Louis was 32 on April 22, 1861.
• Passport application states Louis was born February 28, 1829.

According to the March 4, 1863 Daily Dispatch, Susan and the Union officer she seduced while he was assigned to guard her (this with the permission of her lifelong friend Colonel Morris after General Dix had given specific orders to keep her in solitary confinement away from anyone and everyone whether they be aligned with the Union or the Rebels) were married on May 13, 1862.

Did Federal officer and prison guard Louis Weiss, age 29, risk being charged with treason and losing a potential US Citizenship by falling in love with a confederate spy who was … 40-years-old … or … 27-years-old? Call me a pig if you want, but I think the latter is more likely.

She kept the marriage a secret because he was a union officer. He kept it a secret because she was a confederate spy. It remained a secret until General Morris released her but she made the mistake of returning to Richmond via Norfolk which had a new commander—General Dix. Imprisoning her the first time was a pain in his ass as well as, now, a failure. Dix gave orders she was not to be allowed to leave the city and had all her incoming and outgoing mail land on his desk. General Dix accepted Lt. Weiss’ resignation July 23, 1862. Weiss was also soon granted a passport and allowed to return to his homeland of Germany.

Less than a week later, Susan—with the assistance of Federal officers—runs the blockade and escapes home to Richmond. I am General Dix’s complete lack of surprise.
The rest of the world began to see her secret reveal itself as she began to show … her pregnancy. Her belated marriage announcement came approximately two weeks before their son was born.

Susan’s Reliability
Obviously, we have lots of dates for her birth from stories that must originate with her. Perhaps because women are said to lie about their age or, perhaps, it’s just something she learned from Poe. This begs the question, however: If she lied about her age all of those times over the decades from which we have these biographical sketches and, if we assume she is the most primary source of dubious secondary sources for her death certificate and gravestone—is she any more reliable at age 96?

Sims stated, “no further proof is needed” like he found the Rosetta Stone and Sims quoted the 1850 US Census as if government documents were infallible. If she were reliable as the source of facts available to witnesses for her death certificate and gravestone, she was reliable as the source for a dozen biographical sketches as well as stories she wrote herself.
Even her critics, when shredding her credibility as a researcher of second-hand information, concede her worth as a primary source. Reports spanning her lifetime note her sharp memory. Also, it is widely reported that, because of her limited–or complete lack of–hearing and speech, she communicated primarily by writing and reading notes. I’m sure having a written record of all your conversations helps.

SOURCES

• United States Census, 1850
• United States Census, 1870
• United States Census, 1880
• United States Census, 1910
• United States Census, 1920
• United States Census, 1930
• “Edgar Allan Poe” by Mrs. Susan Archer T. Weiss from the New York Weekly Review (October 6, 1866)
• “The Last Days of Edgar A. Poe” by Mrs. Susan A. T. Weiss from Scribner’s Magazine (March 1878)
• “Susan Archer Talley Weiss: An Untold Story” Spring 1980, The Richmond Literature and History Quarterly.
• “True Birthdate and the Hitherto Unpublished Deathdate of Susan Archer Talley Weiss” by John C. Miller, from the Marginalia section of the June 1977 issue of Poe Studies.
• “Something about a Mr. Persico” by David K. Jackson from “Marginalia,” Poe Studies, June 1976, Vol. IX, No. 1
• The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss by George L. Prentiss (1882)
• Building Little Italy: Philadelphia’s Italians Before Mass Migration by Richard N. Juliani
• American Portrait Miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), Carrie Rebora Barratt, Lori Zabar
• Tula D. Pendleton, “Some Memories of Poe,” Bob Taylor’s Magazine (Nashville, TN), vol. II, no. 6, March, 1906
• Advertisement for “Mr. & Mrs. Persico’s Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies” October 1, 1841 Richmond Whig
• “1836: Elisabeth (McKnight) Persico to Ellen (McKnight) Brayton” from the Spared & Shared 3 blog retrieved from: http://sparedshared3.wordpress.com/letters/1836-elisabeth-mcknight-persico-to-ellen-mcknight-brayton/
• The Biographical Sketches
• The Female Poets of America by Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1848). New York: James Miller.
• Living Writers of the South by (1869)
• Songs of the South: Choice Selections from Southern Poets from Colonial Times to the Present Day Collected and edited by Jennie Thornley Clarke (1914). London: Alexander Moring Limited.
• The South In History and Literature: A Handbook of Southern Authors from the Settlement of Jamestown, 1607 to Living Writers by Mildred Lewis Rutherford (1907). Atlanta: Franklin-Turner Company.
• Southland Writers: Biographical and Critical Sketches of the Living Female Writers of the South with Extracts from Their Writings Volume II by Ida Raymond (1870). Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.
• Women of the South Distinguished in Literature by Mary Forrest (1860). New York: Derby & Jackson.
• The South in the Building of the Nation (1909)
• Poets of Virginia (1907)
• The Woman’s Record (1853)
• “Literary Talent of Richmond” (1904)
• Woman of the Century … Leading American Women (1893)