BALTIMORE (Reuters) - For 50 years, every Jan. 19, the hardiest fans of Edgar Allan Poe have waited in a historic church for a mysterious stranger who visits Poe`s grave to drink a birthday toast to the Baltimore bard. The man, whose identity has been closely guarded, is expected to show up between midnight and 5 a.m. EST on Tuesday, toast the poet and author of eerie tales, then leave a half-bottle of cognac and three red roses on Poe`s grave. The tradition has become an international event as people loiter outside the cemetery walls. A select few get to wait out the night inside the church. Jeff Jerome, curator of the Edgar Allan House and Museum for 20 years, said the original toaster was an older man. Now it is a younger one. On the anniversary of Poe`s birth on Jan. 19, 1809, Jerome gets calls from around the world about the mysterious visitor, he said. He is hard-pressed to understand the significance of placing cognac at the grave, except that it may be a favourite of the toaster`s. "We can`t figure it out," he said. "We`ve read all (Poe`s) stories and letters, and there`s no reference to cognac - to wine but not cognac." Born in Boston, Poe occasionally visited Baltimore, where he had relatives, and eventually lived here from 1827 to 1835 before moving to Richmond, Philadelphia and New York. But he ended up falling ill in Baltimore and died here on Oct. 7, 1849. The toast could not take place in a more fitting setting. Poe, along with his his wife, Virginia, and aunt Maria Clemm is buried at the old Westminster Church. His tombstone is the stump of an obelisk, crammed into a historic graveyard cut off from the city by walls and iron gates. The church is built over catacombs. Jeffrey A. Savoye, secretary-treasurer of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, said people seemed more interested in the birthday visitor than in lectures on Poe himself. But he admitted that the annual publicity revitalised interest in the writer.