Since the beginning stages of my research into Sarah Helen Whitman’s Providence, I have identified the site of her death as the attractive, off-white house with black shutters overlooking Prospect Terrace at 97 Bowen Street. It is embarrassing to admit, but it must be formally addressed (no pun intended) that I was incorrect in identifying that location as the Dailey home where Whitman took her last breath.
When Whitman moved into the Dailey’s home in January, 1878, it was located at 97 Bowen Street. She spent no more than five months there before she passed away in June of that same year. Her well-attended wake was held in the house, too.
Recently, my friend, Donovan Loucks (webmaster of The H. P. Lovecraft Archive, and, by my proclamation, master of geography) brought to my attention that Whitman’s description of her view from the second story of the Dailey home did not quite make sense for the location I had pinned. So, Loucks did what he does best, and quickly found that in 1878, the Dailey home was perpendicular to Brown Street with the side of the house facing Bowen. Sometime between 1882 and 1899, Brown Street was extended to the front of the Dailey house and it was readdressed entirely to 133 Brown Street. This, of course, changed the numbering on Bowen Street, making today’s 97 Bowen Street completely irrelevant to Whitman and the Dailey family. The correct address of the house is 133 Brown Street, and it is there that you will find the very site where Sarah Helen Whitman passed away in the care of her friends.
Research is ever-developing, leaving the researcher ever-learning. I am chalking this one up as a learning experience and a reminder to double, triple—hell, quadruple check locations that I am investigating.
Below is a photo taken today during my first visit to the true site of Sarah Helen Whitman’s death. The Dailey family home at 133 Brown Street:
Edgar Allan Poe: Rhode Island 