Edgar Allan Poe’s Scariest Story Unearthed a Real Murder Mystery

According to the National Register of Historic Places, no shot was ever fired in anger by U.S. forces from Fort Independence. Angry shots from inside the fort is another story, however… One which Poe learned from reading a monument at the fort. It would later inspire him to write “The Cask of Amontillado.”

“The Cask of Amontillado” may very well be the most flawless short story in literature (and in the mind of some readers, Poe’s scariest). “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge,” the narrator, Montresor, announces at the beginning of the tale. Poe served his vengeance with the perfect wine.

Amontillado is a light Spanish sherry. It goes down easy and is apparently a remedy for an aggravated cough. In Poe’s short story, it renders an oblivious victim prone to the well-planned revenge of the slighted storyteller. Montresor happens to have a rare vintage of Amontillado in a cellar beneath the family home. He leads Fortunato through the deep vaults, which are full of the dead bodies of the Montresor dynasty. Once in a secluded, forgotten spot, Montresor walls his intoxicated competitor in a secret dungeon beyond the tombs. Fortunato is still alive when Montresor plasters the last stone into position in the dampness, and the darkness, of the catacombs.

This nightmarish scenario appears to have been inspired by real events.

While Poe was stationed on Castle Island, he learned of a fatal duel which occurred beneath the fort on Christmas Day in 1817. The rumor held that Lt. Gustavus Drane killed Lt. Robert Massie in a sword match over a card game. The bout was held within the inner walls of the fort. The bullying and bragging Drane had ignored repeated entreaties for a non-violent resolution from the compatriots of the apparently well-liked fallen soldier.

In the version Poe heard, Massie’s friends took revenge by getting Drane drunk and sealing him alive behind a wall in the fort. Drane reputedly vanished, never to be seen again. Parts of the story are true, the duel was confirmed, but records indicate Lt. Drane lived to be promoted to captain and died on active duty in 1846, long after the date of his mythic murder. Massie’s death is also documented. He was buried at the fort where Poe saw the tombstone which fired his imagination.