1852 ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LEGAL DOCUMENT SIGNED BY LOCAL BALTIMORE MARYLAND NOTABLES

On offer is an original manuscript legal document from 1852 from Baltimore Maryland detailing the failure of one party to construct several houses on Oregon Street according to the contract. There are signatures of Thomas Willis, George H. Stewart and John P. Poe, who witnessed the document. [We believe John was the nephew of the poet Edgar Allen Poe through his mother, Josephine Clemm, a sister of Virginia Clemm (Edgar's wife), as well as also being a second cousin of Poe through his father. John Poe's father, Neilson Poe, was responsible for finding Edgar Allan Poe sick just before he died, and helping to bury him, even though Poe had despised him for opposing his marriage to Virginia. As such this document makes for a very interesting piece of Baltimore history from shortly after Edgar Allan Poe's death. John Prentiss Poe went on to become Attorney General of Maryland.] Another significant signature is of George H. Steuart (sometimes Stewart), who we believe is either the famous Confederate Civil War general from Baltimore, George H. Steuart (1828-1903) a Confederate brigadier General or his father Major General George H. Steuart (1790-1867) served during the War of 1812 and also during the Civil War as a militia general who ordered Maryland's militia troops to fight the Federal troops in some of the first action of the Civil War. The younger Steuart led troops at battles at First Bull Run, Shenandoah, Cross Keys, Gettysburg, Payne's Farm, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Petersburg, and Appomattox. VG.