After her sister’s death in 1877, Sarah Helen Whitman was alone and her health was declining. Given these circumstances, there is no question why she graciously accepted Charlotte Dailey’s invitation to live with her family in this house. The Daileys were Whitman’s friends and took care of her during the final months of her life. Whitman took her last breath five months after moving in.

Shortly after Whitman moved into the home in January, 1878, she wrote to her English correspondent, the aspiring Poe biographer, John Henry Ingram, “I am for the present in the beautiful home of the Dailey’s—sitting before a cheerful wood fire in an upper-room looking out on fields and meadows and pleasant gardens.”

Whitman had a generous room in the house with all of her statues and portraits decorated to her liking. She was free to take guests as she pleased and had complete liberty in the home. Charlotte Dailey’s oldest daughter, nicknamed “Lottie,” was especially fond of Whitman, devoting much of her time attending to her. Lottie listened to Whitman recount her life and famous relationship with Edgar Allan Poe, whose portrait hung in Whitman’s room. Whitman would often gaze at the portrait as she recollected her time with him. The Daileys helped Whitman transcribe letters to her correspondents, establish her will, and assisted in compiling an edition of poetry that Whitman planned to have published after her death.

Whitman’s visitors said that her manner was so pleasant, and they heard not one complaint from her during her final days. There was no doubt that Sarah Helen Whitman was fearlessly ready for death, which came for her on June 27, 1878 at half past nine o’clock. Charlotte Dailey and her daughters were at her bedside when she slipped quietly away.

The official cause of death was “affection of the heart, complicated by other ailments.” She was seventy-five years old. Whitman had requested that a formal announcement of her death be sent to the papers after her funeral had already taken place and that no invitations to her services be sent out. While the Daileys honored Whitman’s unusual requests, it did not affect the large turnout of people that showed up to the home on the day of Whitman’s wake. Reposed in the Dailey’s parlor in a casket veiled with white cloth, Whitman was surrounded by an array of gorgeous flowers. A wreath of green leaves and ripened wheat adorned the top of her coffin, while her hands pressed a bunch of beautiful and fragrant roses to her chest. The service closed with scriptures read by the secretary of the Women’s Suffrage Association, Anna C. Garlin, who was also Whitman’s close friend. Following the scriptures was a recitation of a poem from Whitman’s works titled, “The Angel of Death.”

Her remains left the home by horse-drawn hearse on route to the North Burial Ground. The funeral procession followed close behind her. When they arrived at the cemetery towards the closing of the afternoon, Whitman’s opened grave awaited her, lined completely with laurel and evergreen so that none of the naked earth could be seen. After Whitman’s casket was lowered, her friends tossed more bunches of greens and each a scatter of flowers upon the closed lid.

Another unusual request that Whitman had made was that no stone be placed above her remains. She wanted nothing but the green earth to mark her final resting place. Charlotte Dailey, serving as the executor of Whitman’s estate, could not bring herself to comply with this one request. She compromised by commissioning a very modest, “suitable tablet,” in Whitman’s honor. In death, Sarah Helen Whitman was smothered with emblems of immortality that truly reflected the legacy she would hold in the city of Providence. The Daileys, who lived in this house, were an integral part of ushering Whitman’s legacy to the next generations.

During Whitman’s time with the Daileys in 1878, the house was perpendicular to Brown Street, with the side of the house facing Bowen Street. The address that Whitman knew the house as was 97 Bowen Street. However, sometime between 1882 and 1899, Brown Street was extended to the front of the 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 Daileys. 133 Brown Street is the location of the house on today’s map.