Red Hill, Law Office, State Route 619, Brookneal, Campbell County, Virginia

Significance: Red Hill plantation was the last home of Virginia patriot Patrick Henry. This building was his last law office and is the only original building remaining on the site, all the others being reconstructions. / Red Hill was the final home and burial site of Patrick Henry (1736-99), prominent Revolutionary War and early national patriot, politician, orator, and lawyer. Henry was a leader in provoking and organizing resistance to British government of the colonies. He served as governor of Virginia five times in the 1770-80s during the American Revolution and its aftermath, and led the opposition to ratifying the U.S. Constitution in Virginia in 1788. He thereafter withdrew from state politics and resumed a successful law practice. Henry occupied Red Hill from 1794 until 1799, the year of his death. Red Hill is a 1950s interpretation of a typical well-to-do eighteenth-century planter's home in Southside Virginia. The buildings have all been reconstruction to some degree, including the law office, which was combined with a mid nineteenth-century law office and later "restored." Portions are thus purported to be original to Henry's tenure. In 1978 the U.S. Department of the Interior recognized Red Hill as a national landmark and entered the property in the National Register of Historic Places. In 1986 the property was designated a National Memorial to Patrick Henry by an act of Congress.
Survey number: HABS VA-1034-A
Building/structure dates: 17q4 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: after 1950
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 78003012