Patrick Henry Fontaine

Name/Title

Patrick Henry Fontaine

Entry/Object ID

2023.30.17

Description

Photographic portrait of Reverend Patrick Henry Fontaine adhered to a matte. He has styled hair and a full beard and his cheeks have been tinted pink. Inscription in blue pen on the back reads: P.H. Fontaine

Made/Created

Studio

A. H. Blunt

Notes

Original

Provenance

Notes

Patrick Henry Fontaine, a great-great-grandson of Patrick Henry, was born on September 18, 1841, to William Spotswood Fontaine (1810-1882) and Sarah Shelton Aylett (1811-1876) at "Fontainebleau" in King William County, Virginia. He was a chaplain in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He married his first cousin, Annie Elizabeth Redd (1847-1936), on February 23, 1865, and they had nine children. The family moved to the Bethel Hill/Woodsdale area of Person County, North Carolina, around 1894. Reverend Fontaine rode a circuit of several area churches, including Bethel Hill church, Amis Chapel, Averett, Grassy Creek, and Mountain Creek. He also taught Bible classes at the Bethel Hill Institute, a local boarding school. Rev. P.H. Fontaine died of pneumonia on March 29, 1915, at his home, Bethel Hill, in Woodsdale, North Carolina. He is buried at Amis Chapel Cemetery in Granville County, North Carolina. This photograph of Fontaine was given to PHMF on May 3, 2023, by Monique and Philip Heller. They 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. Rev. P.H. Fontaine was her grandfather.