The Riverview Cemetery in Trenton, New Jersey, features a unique gravestone designed around The Raven. Each stanza carries the same rhyme: door, implore, more, Lenore, and of course, nevermore. The tombstone, right beside that grave of a New Jersey governor, includes those rhymes
This tombstone is a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, incorporating elements of the master of the macabre’s most famous poem, “The Raven.” Almost 140 years of weathering on the limestone tablet have made its features are difficult, but not impossible, to decipher. It’s definitely carved in the shape of a door, complete with a jamb, molding, knob and keyhole. The word “Nevermore” is almost undetectable, yet undeniably present across the top of the stone door’s frame. Above the stone once rested a sculpted bust of Pallas Athene (the Greek goddess of wisdom) with a raven perched atop her head (as described in Poe’s verse). It is plain to see the figure was indeed mounted there until fairly recently, but by talking to the superintendent, we learned that the statuette had been stolen in the late 1990s. We were also told that at one time the door even had a marble doorknob, but due to acid rain and deterioration, the knob broke off or withered away.
Though not at first visible to the naked eye, the name “Lenore” became more pronounced on the stone door’s nameplate after we gently rubbed away several years of growth and dark green moss.
One might think that the grave must belong to someone named Lenore, or maybe a close friend or relative of Edgar Allan Poe. Neither is true. Truman F. Betts, MD is buried there. Whether or not he was a fan of Poe or his poem, what we do know about Betts is pretty melancholy. Read about him and his poetic gravestone at Weird N.J. -via Strange Company