I don’t know about you but I am a fan of old houses. From their architecture to those that have been made to look like they did in years past. Here in Fayetteville we have several beautiful homes in the historic Haymount area. One of those houses that you can visit is the 1897 Poe House and I was excited to check it out as part of the Fayetteville Blogger Familiarization Tour.

When most people here the name Edgar Allan Poe they think of great literary works such as The Tell Tale Heart, The Raven or one of his other poems or stories. Here in Fayetteville we had our own Edgar Allan Poe although he went by E.A. Poe. He was a prominent businessman and community leader in the area, Poe was a brick maker .

If you have been in Fayetteville you probably have seen his bricks and didn’t even know it. E.A. Poe’s bricks were used in the Hay Street United Methodist Church.

Poe and his wife, Josephine had the house built in 1897 and lived there with their children.

His daughter Lily lived in the home until her death and at that time she gave the house to the state of North Carolina to be used as a museum. The house was refurbished and is open today for free tours that are guided by very knowledgable volunteer tour guides.

No two tours are the same so you may learn a new tidbit or two with each visit. I can say we learned a bunch of interesting things!

Before even entering the house we were learning tidbits. When you first walk up to the house you can find a small imperfection. I won’t say where exactly other than in the eaves of the porch. This imperfection was based in the Poe’s christian belief of God’s infallibility.

My attention inside the house was drawn to all the little things from things such as books from that time period to the inside architecture.

The Encyclopedia of Etiquette was especially interesting. I wanted to pick it up and read it just to see what it said. There is just something about what was once considered proper.

While touring the downstairs we went through both the formal living room that would of been used for entertaining guest, the living room the family used to the children’s room where I fell in love with what our tour guide called the first Easy Bake Oven! It was actually a salesman sample cast iron oven. Back then salesman needed a smaller version of their product to show the lady of the house so they could show off it’s features

In the dining room our tour guide told us some of the ghost stories of the house. It wasn’t until we were at lunch that we discovered we were not alone in the room.

Krystal from Army Wife 101 captured an image of someone. We don’t know who although we think it may be the nurse or cook. Krystal and I were the last 2 people out of the room and when she took the picture I had just left for the food holding room to take pictures.

Here is the last picture I took of the room just moments before hers of the other side of the room.

Pretty spooky stuff! It definitely had us checking our pictures at lunch! Krystal and I both had other images  of different rooms with green orbs. Since I did not use flash it was pretty interesting stuff!

My favorite room of the house was the kitchen but i’m sure some of you could have guessed that.

The cast iron stove was not the original but it was still awesome. In fact they use it throughout the year.

I loved this old cook book and how simple recipes once were!

That Pepsi bottle is actually a sprinkler bottle. Did you know that Pepsi is from North Carolina? It was created in a pharmacy in New Bern in 1898!

I really enjoyed our time at the Poe House and it is something that I plan to go back and visit again. I have been told the house is simply beautiful at Christmas! I know they also decorate for Halloween. It was raining on the day that we visited so I need to make a return visit just to check out the grounds of the Poe House and Arsenal Park, the remains of an ordinance factory that was used by both federal and confederate governments.

Poe House is located at 206 Bradford Avenue, Fayetteville, NC. There hours are-

Take a step back in time and check it out for yourself and let me know if you have any ghostly adventures! I would love to hear about them.