The Broward County Library System is currently distributing reader’s guides on Edgar Allan Poe as part of The Big Read, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts that is designed to restore reading to the center of American culture.

According to the guide, Poe “invented the detective story, perfected the horror tale, and first articulated the theory of the modern short story as well as the idea of pure poetry.”

Many Americans also know Poe was a tortured eccentric who married his 13-year-old cousin and struggled with poverty and alcoholism before dying in 1849 at the age of 40.

But did you know that in his youth, Poe was a record-breaking endurance swimmer? And a runner and a boxer?

One day as a teenager he swam more than six miles up the James River in Richmond, Va., against a heavy tide. This record performance was witnessed by many and recorded in newspapers at the time.

Chris Semtner, the curator at Richmond’s Museum of Edgar Allan Poe, shared with South Florida Adventures some of Poe’s lesser-known athletic feats.

According to Semtner, “One of his classmates, Andrew Johnston, recalled him as ‘slight in person and figure, but well made, active, sinewy, and graceful. In athletic exercises he was foremost: especially, he was the best, the most daring, and most enduring swimmer that I ever saw in the water.’

“Another boyhood friend, John T. L. Preston, recalled that the young Poe was ‘a swift runner, a wonderful leaper, and, what was more rare, a boxer, with some slight training.’

“Still another classmate, Thomas H. Ellis, later wrote that ‘[Poe] was … a leader among boys … [who] led me to do many a forbidden thing, for which I was punished … He taught me to shoot, to swim, and to skate, to play bandy … and I ought to mention that he once saved me from drowning.’

“Poe’s well-documented feat of swimming six miles in the James River amazed Poe’s fellow Richmonders and was still the subject of newspaper articles a decade afterwards. To this day, Poe’s record has not been broken.”

After one year at the University of Virginia Poe enlisted in the army and served for two years before attending West Point with the hope of becoming an officer. He was eventually expelled.

Semnter continued. “Poe continued to exercise throughout his life. At the age of 37, Poe could still beat his friends in a jumping contest. As described by his friend, Mrs. Mary Gove Nichols, ‘Some one proposed a game at leaping. I think it must have been Poe, as he was expert in the exercise. Two or three gentlemen agreed to leap with him, and though one of them was tall, and had been a hunter in times past, Poe still distanced them all. But alas! his gaiters, long worn and carefully kept, were both burst in the grand leap that made him victor.’”

So next time you read a Poe story or poem, think of him as a fellow outdoor athlete. 

Did you know that the Baltimore Ravens were named after the poem “The Raven” by Baltimore native Edgar Allan Poe?