Qualla: Red Hill Patrick Henry National Memorial

Red Hill Patrick Henry National Memorial: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0. By 1794, Patrick Henry had given the most famous speech in American history twice over — once at St. John's Church in Richmond in 1775 when he asked for liberty or death, and a thousand times since when other people retold it. He was 58 years old, his health was beginning to fail, and he wanted to retire. He chose a plantation on the Staunton River in Charlotte County, called Red Hill. He brought his second wife Dorothea and their children. He set up a law office in a small outbuilding. He kept a 2,930-acre tobacco plantation running on the labor of enslaved people. And on June 6, 1799, after five years at Red Hill, he died here.

Image: Ser Amantio di Nicolao | CC BY-SA 4.0

Red Hill Patrick Henry National Memorial: An Orator at Rest

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter F. Rothermel (1812–1895), Public domain. Henry had been governor of Virginia five times, an early opponent of the federal Constitution who eventually accepted it, and a lawyer with one of the most resonant courtroom voices in the new republic. The Red Hill plantation gave him river access via the Staunton, a working tob...

Image: Peter F. Rothermel (1812–1895) | Public domain

Red Hill Patrick Henry National Memorial: The Quarter Place

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit General George Marshall, CC0. Henry was a Founding Father. He was also, like Jefferson and Washington and Madison, a slaveholder. The 2,930-acre plantation he ran at Red Hill in the 1790s depended on the labor of enslaved African Americans who lived in housing near the main fields. In 2018, the Patrick Henry ...

Image: General George Marshall | CC0

Red Hill Patrick Henry National Memorial: From National Monument to National Memorial

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0. Congress authorized a Patrick Henry National Monument on August 15, 1935, contingent on the Secretary of the Interior acquiring the property. The acquisition never happened. The enabling legislation was repealed on December 21, 1944 — and almost immediately replaced by the foundi...

Image: Ser Amantio di Nicolao | CC BY-SA 4.0

Red Hill Patrick Henry National Memorial: The Osage Orange and the Long View

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two figures dominate the grounds. One is the grave of Patrick and Dorothea Henry, set in a small enclosed plot near the reconstructed house. Henry's epitaph reads: His fame his best epitaph. The other is a tree. The Osage orange at Red Hill is nearly 350 years old — meaning it wa...

Image: Ser Amantio di Nicolao | CC BY-SA 4.0