Virginia Independent Chronicle. He changed the name in May 1789 to the
Virginia Independent Chronicle, and General Advertiser and in August 1790 to the
Virginia Gazette, and General Advertiser. During the winter of 1787–1788, and apparently with assistance from George Washington, Davis began publishing essays from
The Federalist in his newspaper. When the state convention met in Richmond in June 1788 to consider ratification of the proposed constitution, Davis became the convention’s official printer and issued its forty-two-page journal (but not the record of debates) later that year. In 1789 the state government engaged him to publish the laws that the new Congress adopted.
Edgar Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, to traveling actors David Poe Jr. (a Baltimore, Maryland, native) and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins (an emigrant from England). Poe was the couple’s second of three children. His brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, was born in 1807, and his sister, Rosalie Poe, was born in 1810. On December 8, 1811, when Poe was just two years old, his mother died in Richmond. His father, who had left the family in 1810, died of unknown circumstances. Henry, as William Henry Leonard was known, lived with his grandparents in Baltimore, while Rosalie and Edgar remained in Richmond. William and Jane Mackenzie adopted Rosalie, and Edgar became the foster son of John and Frances Allan. Poe received his middle name from his foster parents.