Notes
This letter belongs to a collection of correspondence primarily from Lucy Gray Henry Harrison (1857–1944) to Stanislaus “Stan” Vincent Henkels (1854–1926) concerning a proposed sale of Patrick Henry family heirlooms in 1910. Mrs. Harrison was Patrick Henry's great-granddaughter and the last Henry descendant to own and live at Red Hill. She grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and moved to Duluth, Minnesota, after marrying real estate millionaire Matthew Bland Harrison (1853–1892) in 1886. In 1905, she inherited Red Hill and moved onto the property, where she lived along with her sister, Elizabeth Watkins Henry Lyons (1855–1920), and her assistant, Elizabeth H. Kerper (1890–1964).
Mrs. Harrison inherited many of the family heirlooms that had belonged to Patrick Henry and many of his papers. In 1910, on the advice of Philadelphia neurologist and writer Dr. Weir Mitchell (1829–1914), she contacted Stan V. Henkels about a possible private sale or public auction of some of these pieces. Mr. Henkels was an antique dealer in Philadelphia well-known for his auctions and private sales to collectors. The correspondence from Mrs. Harrison to Mr. Henkels details their business negotiations from May 1910 leading up to the sale of the items in Philadelphia on December 20, 1910. It also includes letters concerning a settling of accounts between them up through February 1911.
The Henry heirlooms Mrs. Harrison sent to auction included a collection of Henry’s letters and other documents. One of the auctioned documents was Henry’s handwritten draft of the Stamp Act Resolves, which Charles Hamilton (1847–1930) bought for $1,400 and is now in the special collections of the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Colonial Williamsburg. Two other documents, a draft of a 1795 letter (76.5.7) from Henry to George Washington (1732–1799) and a 1782 land grant (76.5.6) signed by Governor Benjamin Harrison V. (1726–1791), are now in the Red Hill collection, after being purchased at Mr. Henkels’ auction by Charles Hamilton (1847–1930) and donated to the PHMF by Mr. Hamilton’s heirs in 1959. A copy of the receipt for the reimbursement of the gunpowder that Lord Dunmore ordered taken from the Williamsburg Magazine in April 1775 was bought at auction by the Virginia State Library for $100 and is now housed at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. Other papers included letters between Henry and Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794) and letters to Henry from Henry Lee III (1756–1818) and David Ross (1739–1819).
The silver caster set (96.1.1-6) and saltcellars (76.19.1-4) that Mrs. Harrison owned are in the Red Hill collection. Henry may have purchased the casters at the 1776 sale of the belongings of John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore (1730–1809), as Mrs. Harrison mentions in her December 10 letter to Mr. Henkels (04.13.19). She kept the saltcellars while she sent the caster set in June 1910 to be sold at the December auction. The set was sold to Charles Hamilton for $200. Mrs. Harrison also sent a silver plate frame to Mr. Henkels, which was sold at the auction to a Mr. Smith for $16.
The English law books Mrs. Harrison sent to auction included five volumes of “Modern Reports: Being a Collection of several Special Cases Most of them adjudged in the Court of Common Pleas,” published between 1700 and 1720, which were purchased by the Museum of the American Revolution and are currently housed in their collection. Also included was William Peere William’s “Report of Cases Argued and Determined in the High Court of Chancery,” published in 1749. This was purchased from the auction by the publishing firm Dodd & Livingston for $26.
The black walnut corner chair passed directly through the Henry family line from Patrick to Lucy Harrison, and it is said to be the chair in which Henry was sitting when he died on June 6, 1799 of complications from intussusception. An image of the chair appears in “The True Patrick Henry” and in Henkels’ December 1910 auction catalog (76.5.2). It was sold on order at the auction for $225, then later given to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation by Elizabeth Gribbel Corkran (1897–1976), a descendant of the buyer.
A photograph of the desk Mrs. Harrison sent to be auctioned appears in George Morgan's 1907 biography ”The True Patrick Henry.” Mrs. Harrison shipped the desk to Philadelphia in June 1910, and it was sold on order at the December auction for $500. The desk, along with the corner chair and the caster set, is pictured in Mr. Henkels’ auction catalog (76.5.2).
Mrs. Harrison also sent Thomas Sully’s (1783–1872) portrait of Patrick Henry to Mr. Henkels for the auction. This portrait is an oil painting on canvas. It was commissioned in 1815 by Henry’s first biographer, William Wirt (1772–1834), who featured an engraving of the image on the frontispiece of his 1817 biography, “Sketches of the Life & Character of Patrick Henry.” Sully based the portrait on one of the few images of Henry painted from life: a 1795 miniature created by his half-brother, Lawrence Sully (1769–1804). Thomas Sully’s portrait of Henry was given by Wirt to Henry’s youngest son John (1796–1868), who passed the portrait on to his son William Wirt Henry (1831–1900), who loaned it to the Virginia State Library from 1873 to 1884 before he passed it on to his daughter, Lucy Harrison. In 1902, Mrs. Harrison loaned the portrait again to the Virginia State Library but reclaimed it in 1910 to sell at Mr. Henkels’ auction. The original portrait was purchased at Henkels’ auction by Charles Hamilton for $4,000. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation later purchased the portrait from the Hamilton family and currently has it in its collection.
Mrs. Harrison’s and Mr. Henkels’ connection to Dr. Weir Mitchell is unknown. Dr. Mitchell began his medical career as a physiologist, graduating from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and going on to study the physiological effects of venoms and poisons in animals. During the Civil War, he was a contract surgeon in Philadelphia hospitals. He became interested in diseases of the nervous system, leading him to become a pioneer in American neurology. He is best known for his prescription of the “rest cure” for the treatment of psychiatric diseases, which consisted of bedrest, dieting, electrotherapy, and massage. Dr. Mitchell also published novels and poetry.
The Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation purchased this letter from an online seller in May 2004 as part of the collection of correspondence.