Henry Family Graveyard

Henry Family Graveyard. . The double box tomb on the north side of the path marks the graves of Patrick Henry and his second wife, Dorothea Dandridge. Patrick Henry died at home on June 6, 1799, after a long illness. Dorothea died on Valentine's Day 1831 at Seven Islands, the home of her daughter across the river in Halifax County, where she was initially buried, but was later disinterred and brought here for final burial., The other double box tomb marks the graves of John and Elvira McClelland Henry, Patrick Henry's youngest son and his wife. He and Elvira married in 1826 and lived here all their natural lives., Alexander Spotswood Henry, Henry's sixth son, died in 1854 in Charlotte County. In 1975, Mabel Bellwood, the first caretaker and curator of Red Hill, discovered a mention of the location of Alexander's burial in a Patrick Henry biography and marked the grave., Laura Henry Carter was the daughter of John and Elvira Henry, and it was after her death and marking of her grave that John marked the graves of his father and mother. It was not unusual in the 18th and 19th centuries in family or rural plots to leave graves unmarked., The infant's grave under the marble obelisk is that of John Henry, the great-grandson of Patrick Henry, and son of William Wirt Henry, oldest son of John Henry. John's twin brother, James Marshall, lived to adulthood., In 1997. three unmarked graves were located during an archeological investigation. There were several members of the Henry family who died at Red Hill, including Jane Robertson, Patrick Henry's youngest child, who died in 1798, aged four days, but no sign of her grave was found., Graveyard landscaping, completed in 1998, was funded by the E. Stuart James Grant Charitable Trust, under the direction of Perry Wheelock. . This historical marker was erected by Red Hill, Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation. It is in Brookneal in Campbell County Virginia