18-Studley To Mount Brilliant

Sometime during Patrick’s childhood, the family moved about twenty-five miles west, from Studley Plantation to Mt. Brilliant, located in the densely forest covered area known as Rocky Mills, near the South Anna River. The time of the move is a point of biographical conflict. Some writers have John Henry moving his family from Studley to Mount Brilliant sometime when Patrick was small, perhaps even in his infancy. Wirt writes, “In his early childhood, his parents removed to Mount Brilliant, now the Retreat; at which latter place, Patrick Henry was raised and educated.”[1] Morgan suggests the family moved when Patrick was but a few months old.[2] Author Robert Douthat Meade, corresponded with a descendant of John Syme while researching his two-volume set, and places the move years later. Mrs. W.W. Hunter wrote Meade telling him that family documentation has the younger John Syme being born in 1729, and around 1750, he “had reached his majority and might soon need Studley for his own family.”[3] If the Henry family moved in 1750, Patrick would have been fourteen years of age.

Syme, while not living at Studley the entire time, would eventually sell the plantation in 1783 to attorney Peter Lyons, who was Henry’s opposite in “The Parson’s Cause” legal case of 1763. Lyons passed away in 1809 while living on the grounds of Studley and is buried on the property.[4]

John Henry lived the remainder of his life at Mount Brilliant. A grave marker put in place by the Chancellor Wythe Chapter of the DAR marks his probable final resting place on the property. John Henry had left Scotland sometime in the mid 1720’s, and made Hanover County his home his entire time in Virginia. He died in 1773, before he could see the full fruit of his son’s labor in the fight for independence.

[1] Wirt, Sketches, 1818, 1

[2] Morgan, True Patrick Henry, 24

[3]George Douthat Meade, “Patriot In The Making”, pgs 46-47. Footnote references correspondence with W.W. Hunter.

[4] Mark Couvillon “Patrick Henry’s Virginia” pg. 11. Fully annotated chapter on Studley Plantation. Published in 2001 by the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation, the book is an excellent Henry biography, written from the perspective of over 20 physical landmarks associated with Patrick Henry.