| 1748 |
When
Patrick Henry was about twelve, the family moved to Mount Brilliant in
Hanover County. Henry was
educated mainly by his father and his uncle.
Although
Patrick Henry was baptized into the Church of England, he often attended
Presbyterian services with his mother.
The dramatic preaching of Samuel
Davies and other ministers associated with the evangelical movement
known as the Great Awakening was significant influence on Patrick Henry’s
oratory. |
| 1751 |
Patrick
Henry apprenticed to a storekeeper as a clerk. |
| 1752 |
Colonel
John Henry set up a store for his sons, William and Patrick.
They were too liberal with credit and the business failed. |
| 1754-1763 |
French
and Indian War between France and Great Britain. |
| 1754 |
Patrick
Henry married Sarah Shelton. Her
dowry was a 600-acre tobacco farm in Hanover County named Pine Slash, a
house, and six slaves. Henry’s
first effort at farming failed during the severe drought that afflicted
Virginia. |
| 1755 |
Patrick
and Sarah Henry’s first child, Martha (Patsey), was born at Pine Slash. |
| 1757 |
Fire
destroyed the house and furnishings at Pine Slash. Patrick Henry sold their slaves and opened a store, but this
business also failed.
John
Henry was born sometime during 1757. |
| 1760 |
Patrick
and Sarah Henry moved to Hanover Tavern where Henry helped his
father-in-law with the business. In
his spare time, Henry read law and observed proceedings in the courthouse
of Hanover County, across the street from the tavern.
April
15: After traveling to
Williamsburg to be examined and admitted to the bar, Henry presented his
law license to the court of Goochland County. |
| 1763 |
William
Henry was born in Hanover County.
December
1: Patrick Henry’s oratory
gained its first public notice in The Parsons’
Cause, when he criticized the king for disallowing a statute, the
Two-Penny Act, passed by the General Assembly of Virginia for the good of
the colony. |
| 1764 |
Patrick
and Sarah Henry moved to Roundabout in Louisa County. |
| 1765 |
May:
Patrick Henry was elected to the House of Burgesses from Louisa
County.
May 29:
Henry introduced a series of resolutions against the Stamp Act and
supported them with the “Caesar-Brutus
Speech.” Copies of
his resolutions, published in newspapers throughout the colonies, helped
start the Revolution. |
| 1767 |
Anne
Henry was born at Roundabout. |
| 1769 |
Betsey
Henry was born in Hanover County. |
| 1771 |
Patrick
Henry purchased Scotchtown Plantation.
After
the birth of their youngest child, Edward (Neddy) Henry, Sarah Henry’s
mental health suddenly began to decline.
The colony of Virginia had just opened a lunatic asylum in
Williamsburg, but its facilities were more like a prison than a hospital. Confined by her insanity, Sarah lived out her life at
Scotchtown in the care of people who loved her. |
| 1772 |
Robert
Carter Nicholas, one of the foremost lawyers in the colony, retired and
gave his law practice to Patrick Henry.
Henry
became a member of Virginia’s Committee of Correspondence. |
| 1773 |
January
18: Patrick Henry described his attitude toward slavery in a letter
to Robert Pleasants, a Quaker from Hanover County.
December
16: The
Boston Tea Party. To protest the tax on tea, patriots disguised as
Native-Americans threw a cargo of British East India Company tea into
Boston Harbor. Parliament
sent troops to close the port and force the colonists to submit.
News traveled quickly to Virginia, where the burgesses declared a
day of fasting and prayer before sending delegates to Philadelphia to
confer with other colonial leaders. |
| 1774 |
August:
Patrick Henry was elected to the First Continental Congress in
Philadelphia, where the united colonies developed a non-importation
association that put pressure on British merchants by refusing to import
British goods. |
| 1775 |
Sarah
Shelton Henry died at Scotchtown, having never regained her sanity.
March
23: In the Second Virginia
Convention, at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Patrick Henry gave his Liberty or Death Speech
in support of his resolution to raise forces to defend Virginia
against the British.
April
19: The War for Independence
began between the British army and the Massachusetts militiamen at
Lexington and Concord, outside Boston.
April
20: Governor Dunmore of
Virginia sent royal marines to remove the gunpowder from the Magazine in Williamsburg so that the patriots could not use it
against the British troops.
May 2:
Patrick Henry organized 150 men from Hanover County to march on
Williamsburg and demand the return of the public gunpowder.
May 6:
Dunmore issued a proclamation
against “a certain Patrick Henry . . . and a Number of deluded
Followers” who had organized “an Independent Company . . .
and put themselves in a Posture of War.”
A few weeks later, Dunmore and his family left the Palace in
Williamsburg and took refuge on a British warship anchored in the York
River.
August
26: Although Henry had no
military experience, he was elected colonel of the First Virginia Regiment
and commander-in-chief of the Virginia militia. |
| 1776 |
February 28:
Henry resigned his military appointment.
April
19: Henry was elected to
represent Hanover County in Virginia’s Fifth Revolutionary Convention.
This convention declared Virginia independent of Great Britain and
adopted its first state Constitution, which included the Virginia
Declaration of Rights. Henry
may have drafted the 15th and 16th articles of the Virginia
Declaration of Rights, which was an
important forerunner of the Bill of Rights.
June 29:
The convention formally adopted the Constitution and elected
Patrick Henry as the first governor of the independent commonwealth
of Virginia. He served three
consecutive one-year terms as governor of the largest of the American
states, and two additional terms in the 1780s.
October
9: Henry married Dorothea Dandridge, granddaughter of Alexander Spotswood,
who had been governor of Virginia in the 1720s. |
| 1777 |
October
17: American troops trapped
General John Burgoyne’s 9,000 British troops at Saratoga, New York. The
surrender of Burgoyne’s entire army convinced the French that they could
enter the war against Britain. |
| 1777-1778 |
Governor
Henry worked hard to locate and ship supplies to George Washington and the
American troops camped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. |
| 1778 |
August
2: Patrick and Dorothea Henry’s
first child, named for her mother, was born in the Governor’s
Palace at Williamsburg. |
| 1779 |
After
his third term as governor, Patrick Henry moved his family to Leatherwood,
a 10,000-acre plantation near the Virginia-North Carolina border.
The citizens of Henry County, named for him in 1776, promptly
elected him to the General Assembly. |
| 1780 |
January
4: Sarah Butler Henry was
born at Leatherwood.
May 12:
The British captured Charleston, South Carolina, and General
Charles Cornwallis began a campaign that eventually brought British troops
north toward Virginia.
June 4:
British raiders led by Benedict Arnold and Banistre Tarleton send
Governor Thomas Jefferson and the legislature (including Patrick Henry)
scurrying over the Blue Ridge Mountains to Staunton. |
| 1781 |
June: When
a legislator called for an investigation of the response to Arnold’s and
Tarleton’s raids, Patrick Henry knew that Governor Jefferson had acted
properly and would be exonerated of any wrong-doing.
Jefferson, however, regarded the call for an investigation as a
personal insult and blamed Henry for not stopping it.
The friendship between the two patriots turned sour.
October 19:
The American army and the French navy forced General Cornwallis to
surrender at Yorktown.
November 3:
Martha Catharina Henry was born at Leatherwood. |
| 1783 |
August 15:
Patrick Henry, Jr. was born at Leatherwood.
Believing
that “every free state” should promote “useful knowledge amongst its
citizens,” Henry helped create Hampden
Sydney College in Prince Edward County.
Six of his sons studied there. |
| 1784 |
Patrick
Henry’s bill to expand government support of teachers – most of whom
were also ministers in the Episcopalian and Presbyterians churches – was
defeated after he left the legislature.
After much debate, the legislature adopted the Virginia
Statute for Religious Freedom, which stipulates the separation of
church and state on January 16, 1786.
November
17: Henry was elected to a
fourth term as governor of Virginia. |
| 1785 |
October 1:
Fayette Henry was born at Salisbury.
November
25: Henry was re-elected to
serve a fifth term as governor of Virginia. |
| 1786 |
Henry
moved to Pleasant Grove, in Prince Edward County, and resumed his law
practice. |
| 1787 |
Patrick
Henry declined to serve at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
September
17: The Philadelphia
Convention published its new plan of government.
This new Constitution, still in force today, strengthened the central
government and created the presidency and federal court system. When the
convention rejected George Mason’s demand for a bill of rights, Mason
refused to sign the Constitution. |
| 1787-1788 |
Americans
debated the proposed Constitution through the winter. Supporters of the Constitution called themselves Federalists.
Patrick Henry was skeptical of the proposed Constitution and was
one of the nation’s leading Anti-Federalists. |
| 1788 |
March:
Patrick Henry was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates and to
the Virginia
Convention of 1788.
June 2:
Delegates convened in Richmond to decide on the Constitution.
Henry’s eloquent speeches were transcribed by shorthand and were
subsequently published.
June 2:
Alexander Spotswood Henry was born at Pleasant Grove.
June 25:
Virginia ratified the Constitution by a slim margin of 89 to 79.
Strong arguments by Patrick Henry and the Anti-Federalists led to
the passage of amendments to the Constitution that became the federal Bill of Rights. |
| 1789 |
April
30: George Washington was
inaugurated as the first president of America.
July 14:
The fall of the Bastille marked the beginning of the French
Revolution.
September
25: Congress passed twelve
amendments to the Constitution, ten of which are eventually ratified by
the states to become the federal Bill of
Rights. |
| 1790 |
April
7: Nathaniel West was born at
Pleasant Grove. |
| 1791 |
November
12: Henry retired from the
House of Delegates to concentrate on paying off his debts and securing
assets for his children.
December
15: Ten amendments to the
Constitution were ratified, forming the Bill
of Rights.
John
Henry died in Henry County, leaving a wife and one son, Edmund. |
| 1792 |
March
27: Richard Henry was born at
Pleasant Grove.
Patrick
Henry moved his family to a 3,500-acre plantation at Long Island on the
Staunton River in Campbell County.
Reign of
Terror in the French Revolution: King Louis XIV and thousands of leaders
and citizens were executed by guillotine in Paris and other cities. |
| 1793 |
Henry
defended Richard Randolph in the famous Randolph Murder Trial and
completed arguments on the British Debts Case.
August
24: Richard Henry died at
Long Island. |
| 1794 |
January
21: Winston Henry was born at
Long Island.
Edward (Neddy)
died on October 29th at New Glasgow.
Winston was renamed Edward Winston.
Patrick
Henry purchased Red Hill, a 700 acre estate on the Staunton River in
Charlotte County. For two
years he alternated living between Red Hill and Long Island, going to Long
Island during the “sickly season.”
His daughters preferred the social life at Red Hill, and Patrick
Henry enjoyed the natural setting of Red Hill, calling it “one of the
garden spots of the world.” Henry
and Dorothea added a bedroom on the east side of the house where they
could “hear the patter of rain on its roof." |
| 1794-1796 |
Patrick
Henry declined several appointments to high office owing to his poor
health and the needs of his family. Henry
declined requests that he represent Virginia in the United States Senate
or serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Secretary of State,
minister to Spain or France, or a sixth term as governor of Virginia. |
| 1796 |
John
Henry was born at Red Hill. He
lived to inherit the house and half the acreage. He was buried at Red Hill
next to his wife, Elvira McClelland Henry. |
| 1798 |
The
Alien and Sedition Acts prohibited
criticism of government officials. Federalists used these new laws to
imprison newspaper editors or politicians who disagreed with them.
The Kentucky and Virginia
Resolutions, secretly written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison,
asserted a state’s right to declare the Alien and Sedition Acts
unconstitutional.
January
21: Jane Robertson Henry was
born at Red Hill and died on January 25th.
William
Henry died in New Bern, N.C., where he held the office of sheriff. There
was no mention of any children in his will. |
| 1799 |
March
4: Although his health was
failing, Patrick Henry made his last public speech
to the voters at Charlotte County Courthouse. George Washington had
convinced Patrick Henry to run in the election for the Virginia
legislature. He won the
election but died before the legislature convened that autumn.
May 22:
Anne Henry Roane died at the home of her sister, Betsey Henry
Aylett, in King William County. She was survived by her husband, Spencer
Roane, and six children.
June 6:
Patrick Henry died at Red Hill.
Henry was 63 years old. His
body was buried in the cemetery at Red Hill.
The inscription on Patrick Henry’s tomb reads, “His fame his
best epitaph.”
With his
will,
Patrick Henry left a copy of his Stamp Act resolutions and a note
advising future generations to “practice Virtue thyself, and encourage
it in others.” |
| 1831 |
February 14:
Dorothea Dandridge Henry died and was buried next to Patrick Henry
at Red Hill. |
| 1944 |
October 30:
The Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation was created. |
| 1986 |
May
12: Congress designated Red
Hill as the Patrick Henry National Memorial. |
