Notes
This photograph was taken in the early 20th century inside the law office at Red Hill.
Although the location of this image was previously unknown, further investigation proved this to be a stone fireplace once in the law office of Patrick Henry. Stanhope Johnson, head architect during the principal restoration of Red Hill, identifies a similar photograph (95.24.1) as being the law office. This photograph may have been taken around the same time as the Johnson image. It was most likely taken after the mansion fire in February 1919, as the objects appearing here were formerly kept in the library or "Relic Room" of the mansion.
There are several objects featured in the photograph that are now in Red Hill's collection (from left to right, top to bottom): Patrick Henry's brass scales (76.117), a photograph collage of Henry miniatures (77.2), a photographic print of the Aylett portrait (98.28.3), the key to Patrick Henry's bedroom (76.27), a watercolor painting of Red Hill from 1905 (2021.23), and the Red Hill pewter coffeepot (76.169). Many of these items were owned by Lucy Gray Henry Harrison (1857-1944), a great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry. The brass cannonball andirons also appear in a bedroom photograph (76.144.5) in her mansion at Red Hill.
This photograph, along with the other items in the 2023.24 accession, were in the Nashville house of Margaret Henry Ottarson (1911–1981), a great-great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry, when she sold it to her friend, Pamela Wood Kirchner. Kirchner gave the items to PHMF on March 23, 2023.