Patrick Henry By: Charles Petersen Patrick Henry was born on May 29, 1736 at "Studley" in Hanover County. He attended school in the area until he was 10. Later he lived in "The Retreat," where he clerked in a Scotch merchant's store in Newcastle he married Sarah Shelton when he was 18 years old, and moved to "Pine Slash." After abandoning the idea of being a storekeeper, Henry became a lawyer. Henry did not go to Williamsburg to study law at William and Mary. Instead he read the law books, at home, in Hanover Tavern. When he thought his self-study was sufficient, he went to Williamsburg to get his professional license to practice law. He gained fame in 1763 at Hanover Courthouse by winning the case since knows as the "Parsons' Cause." In 1764 he moved to Roundabout Creek and practiced law in Spotsylvania and other counties within a horseback ride. He finally was financially established. He won election to the House of Burgesses and took his seat in May, 1765. The House met in Williamsburg, where he increased his fame as a Virginia patriot with his speech and resolutions against the Stamp Act at the Capitol. The First Virginia Convention met in the Capitol during the first week of August, 1774. That convention elected the Virginia representatives to the First Continental Congress. After the election, George Washington invited Patrick Henry to travel with him to that meeting. In Philadelphia he stayed with Richard Henry Lee, and joined the debates. There on Tuesday, September 6, 1774 he dramatically claimed "I am not a Virginian, but an American," and spurred the first Continental Congress to resolve that the unity of the different colonies was more important than their differences. On March 23, 1775, at St. John's Church, Henry delivered his famous "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech and proposed the colony arm itself in preparation for war with England. During the night of April 20-21, 1775, the royal governor secretly seized the colony's official stockpile of gunpowder from the Magazine in Williamsburg. The political leaders in Virginia calmed the outraged residents of the local area on April 21 before open warfare broke out. However, hot-headed Patrick Henry alarmed the politicians, by leading the Hanover militia towards Williamsburg on May 3. Henry halted a dozen miles from Williamsburg, where he negotiated a peaceful payment for the powder rather than a military assault on the Governor. After settling for payment of the gunpowder, Henry then traveled to the Second Continental Congress in what's now Independence Hall. At that Congress Henry was active in dealing with the titles to western lands. Henry was elected to serve in the Fifth Virginia Convention during May/June, 1776. That last convention voted for independence from England, approved the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and adopted the first Virginia Constitution. Henry was the first elected governor of Virginia in 1776, serving three one-year terms. As the newly-elected governor, Henry supported George Rogers Clark when he requested gunpowder to fight the British and the native Americans on the "Northwest" frontier. He supported Clark again two years later in 1778, when through secret orders the Virginia government authorized an attack on British forts that ultimately led to the addition of the Northwest to the new United States in the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Henry's wife Sarah had died at Scotchtown in 1775, while suffering mental illness or depression. When the constitution was proposed in Virginia Henry boldly spoke out against it because it had no bill of rights. He lost, just barely, as the delegates from the Kentucky counties ended up voting for ratification without requiring that a Bill of Rights be added first. During George Washington's second term as President, Henry declined opportunities to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Secretary of State, and Ambassador to France. He also declined to run for President in 1796. Dorothea, his new wife, gave birth to the couple's last child on January, 1798. That daughter, Jane, was their 11th child. After this time little is known of Patrick Henry.