John Prentiss Poe (August 22, 1836 – October 14, 1909) was Attorney General of the State of Maryland from 1891 to 1895.

[2] His name is lent to the 1904 "Poe Amendment" that sought to disenfranchise black voters in Maryland by introducing grandfather and "understanding" clauses.

[1][4] Black voters organized the Negro Suffrage League and established chapters throughout the state in order to marshal opposition to the amendment.

While Poe was sympathetic and contributed to the text of the amendment, it was drafted by Arthur Pue Gorman, chairman of the Maryland Senate Democratic Caucus from 1903 to 1906.

[2] He had six sons and three daughters, including Marguerita, S. Johnson, Edgar A., John P. Jr., Neilson, Arthur and Gresham.

Another son, Johnny Poe coached at Navy and Virginia, and was killed in the Battle of Loos during World War I.

[2] In the novel Chesapeake, James A. Michener describes racially-disenfranchising legislation proposed by John Prentiss Pope (sic), "dean of the law school at the university".

The author describes a fictitious law, as well as the debate surrounding its motivation and purported merits, using verbiage that parallels the historical Poe Amendment.