With no remaining ties to the Henry or Syme families, the main home at Studley plantation was destroyed by fire in 1807. Owned at the time by Peter Lyons, the structure was possibly struck by lightning as, “a succession of destructive wind and electrical storms had plagued Hanover County and the Richmond area that year.” This from a letter Lyons penned to his daughter, Lucy Hopkins, shortly after the fire.[1] Although years removed from the birth of Patrick, records exist which give us a picture of his birthplace.
Henry biographer, Robert Douthat Meade performed research for his 1957 volume, Patrick Henry: Patriot In The Making, using Mutual Assurance Society insurance documents from 1796 and 1805. He also gathered anecdotal information from local residents to give a description of the plantation buildings and the surrounding area.[2]
The two story home was made of brick and wood and measured thirty by forty feet. Several out-buildings dotted the six-hundred-acre landscape that today is broken up into several smaller parcels. The kitchen was detached from the main house, which was typical. It was set about fifteen feet off to the side, and two stables with attached sheds and a barn were about forty-four feet away. A sixteen by twenty foot wooden study, or office was located about forty-five yards from the main dwelling. These, and other buildings which made up the physical properties of Studley plantation have all been claimed by time.
An archaeological survey done in 1977 located the “intact walls of a brick cellar…within a dense concentration of eighteenth-century cultural material within a plowed field.”[3] As I stood on this site, the cellar of the house had been re-covered, and the excavated “cultural material” from the Syme and Henry eras of Studley had been removed from among the plowed fields of the farm. But the spot still feels very special. This was the childhood home and playground of Patrick Henry.
[1] U.S. Dept. of the Interior: National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form (March, 1981), referencing a May 22, 1807 letter from Peter Lyons to Lucy (Lyons) Hopkins.
[2] Robert Douthat Meade, Patrick Henry-Patriot In The Making, (1957, 1st Ed.) Footnote #3 on pg. 355.
National Register of Historic Places, Lyons’ letter
[3] National Register of Historic Places, Section 7.
Patrick Henry: His Life 