Mystery man leaves roses and cognac at grave on Poe's birthday every year since 1949

For the 57th straight year, a mystery man paid tribute to Edgar Allan Poe by placing roses and a bottle of cognac on the writer's grave in Baltimore, Maryland to mark his January 19 birthday, reports CNN.

Poe was not known to be a Freemason. However, in his short story The Cask of Amontillado, he made a quite humorous reference to Freemasonry while discussing building a wall.

Excerpt from The Cask of Amontillado:

I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.

I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement — a grotesque one.

"You do not comprehend?" he said.

"Not I," I replied.

"Then you are not of the brotherhood."

"How?"

"You are not of the masons."

"Yes, yes," I said "yes! yes."

"You? Impossible! A mason?"

"A mason," I replied.

"A sign," he said.

"It is this," I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the folds of my roquelaire.

"You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. "But let us proceed to the Amontillado."

"Be it so," I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak, and again offering him my arm.

You can read Poe's entire short story The Cask of Amontillado here.