Notes
This steel key is believed to have been the key to the parlor room at Red Hill, where Patrick Henry died.
According to a note in the accession file, the key hung on a nail in the Red Hill mansion next to the parlor door. The night of the fire at Red Hill in February 1919, Elizabeth Kerper, secretary and companion to Lucy Henry Harrison, snatched the key off the nail as she left the house.
The key appears in a photograph (2023.24.12) of the law office at Red Hill during the residency of Lucy Gray Henry Harrison (1857–1944). Harrison gave the key to the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (now Preservation Virginia) in 1950. It was kept at the John Marshall House in Richmond, Virginia.
On October 27, 1976, Preservation Virginia loaned the key to the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation as a long-term loan. In May 2023, Preservation Virginia agreed to transfer the key to PHMF as a gift due to its significance at Red Hill.