Notes
The sitter of this portrait is an older Black man labeled as a "servant of the Fontaines." He was no doubt formerly enslaved by descendants of Patrick Henry's first child, Martha Henry Fontaine (1755-1818), the family through which this object was passed down. His name appears written across the top of the frame: Squire Claiborn.
There is a reference to a "Squire" in a letter (2023.30.29)written by Rev. Patrick Henry Fontaine (1841-1915) and another directly underneath the 1870 census record for Fontaine's family, in which a 25-year-old Black man called "Squire Clabon" is listed as a farm worker, along with his family.
This photograph was given to PHMF on May 3, 2023, by Monique and Philip Heller, who inherited this object and the others in this accession from her stepmother, Catherine Spotswood Fontaine Lawrence (1938-2015), a third-great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry.