Notes
Owner: Soil Conservation Service
This photograph of Red Hill is one of a collection taken by the Southside Soil Conservation Service (SCS) in October 1950. They provide documentation of "Miracle Day"—a SCS demonstration project at Red Hill organized to rehabilitate the neglected farmland for the use of the Patrick Henry Boys Plantation. The original photographs were in the care of former SCS official, Eugene Morris.
On September 23, 1950, a committee from the PHMF met at Red Hill and reserved about twenty acres of property, and the rest was to be used as farmland for the boys' home.
On October 18, 1950, "Miracle of Conservation", also known as "Miracle Day", was held at Red Hill to demonstrate farming practices while renovating approximately 250 acres of land, preparing it for use by the Patrick Henry Boys Plantation program. It was sponsored by the United States Soil Conservation Service, Virginia Forest Service, Virginia Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Extension Service through local county agents, veterans' training classes, and farm equipment and implement dealers in the area. The event was overseen by approximately 5,000 visitors.
The event was publicized on October 12, 1950 in "The Charlotte Gazette" in Drakes Branch, Virginia in Volume 76 – number 49 and also in the "Richmond-Times Dispatch" on September 24, 1950.
This photograph was taken right after a fog had lifted in the morning and as the men rolled their tractors out into the field between the railroad and the original house site.
On the far right edge of the photo, Patrick Henry's former law office can be seen. At this time, the law office was one of the few remaining buildings at Red Hill and still stood unrestored with additions made by Lucy Gray Henry Harrison (1857–1944), a great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry, around 1911.
The Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation borrowed the original photographs from Mr. Morris and made enlarged prints for its collection in August 2007. The original 3 1/2" x 5" photos were hand delivered back to Eugene Morris on or shortly after August 24, 2007.