Patrick Henry, Advocate and Protector of the American Frontier, Urgently Sends Some of His Own Monies to Defend It

Patrick Henry was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1765 and soon became its leading radical member. He was one of that colony's leading opponents of the Stamp Act, and proposed the Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions that challenged the authority of Parliament. One of them, considered treasonous by many, held "that the General Assembly of this Colony have the only and exclusive Right and Power to lay Taxes and Impositions upon the inhabitants of this Colony…" In 1774 Henry represented Virginia at the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia where he continued in the role of firebrand. In early 1775, he took an active leadership role in the Revolution, particularly at the second Virginia Convention at Richmond in March 1775. The Virginia delegates were divided between those who wanted only a peaceful solution to the imperial dispute and those who also were ready to prepare for military resistance. Henry led the call for preparedness and introduced a resolution to that effect. He supported its passage with the legendary speech that closed with “Give me liberty or give me death!” Henry carried the day, but by no more than a half dozen votes. Henry was elected to the last of Virginia ’s revolutionary conventions, which met in Williamsburg on May 6, 1776. There he participated in drafting Virginia ’s resolution calling upon Congress to declare the colonies “free and independent states.”

After independence, Henry became the first elected governor of Virginia, initially serving from July 6, 1776, to June 1, 1779. At this time he worked closely with George Washington to raise and equip the soldiers who won American independence. In 1778 Governor Henry sent Virginia troops under George Rogers Clark to gain the Old Northwest from the British and their Indian allies. This action ultimately led to the addition of the Northwest to the new United States. Henry was succeeded as governor by Thomas Jefferson. Henry would later return as governor, being elected for two more terms from November 30, 1784 to November 30, 1786.

After leaving the Governor's chair the first time, Henry was elected in 1780 to Virginia ’s assembly, the House of Delegates. He promptly emerged as one of its most influential members, rivaled only by Richard Henry Lee and James Madison. In 1782, worked to put the state on solid ground economically and morally. He was magnanimous in pressing for a law allowing Virginia's is Tories to return home, though the assembly prohibited this action instead. Despite his concern about allotting too much power to a central government, Henry supported measures to provide the national government under the Articles of Confederation with adequate revenues. He supported allowing British imports back into Virginia, but opposed repayment of debts to British creditors, incurred prior to the Revolution, until the British had evacuated American forts on the western frontier.

Henry was born in 1736 in an area that was then a frontier, and he was always interested in the west. In the House of Delegates, he was considered a spokesman for interior Virginia, and was a strong voice for eliminating the British and their Indian allies as dangers there. In 1780 he moved to Patrick Henry County in southwestern Virginia, which was formed in 1777 named after him. During the French and Indian War, that place was a true frontier outpost, with its Fort Mayo being the southernmost fort in the then colony. During the latter part of the Revolutionary War, the British had the Mingo, Shawwnee, and Cherokee Indians ravaging this region. Southwest Virginia was still considered a frontier as late as the 1790s, when President George Washington appropriated federal monies to protect it.

Joining Henry in the 1780s in that frontier location were the influential Hairston family and Col. Joseph Martin. Peter Hairston was a sheriff in the county and a major of Virginia militia. Martin organized and led the county's forces during the Revolutionary War, and played a key role in successful negotiations with the Indians during the time General Cornwallis was overrunning Georgia and South Carolina, which finally enabled the frontiersmen to give Cornwallis a blow at Kings Mountain from which he never recovered. In November 1777 Gov. Patrick Henry commissioned Martin as Agent and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the State of Virginia, a position which he continued to occupy until 1789. Being in charge of the frontier regions of Virginia in this time period was a challenge, and before the federal government took over the responsibility, there was always a great need for funds to pay for this protection.

In 1782, the General Assembly of Virginia enacted a major revision of the Commonwealth's tax laws, which provided for statewide enumeration of property, but on the county level. The law delegated to the County Sheriffs, such as Peter Hairston, the responsibility for collecting the taxes. Money was scarce in the frontier 1780s, and all kinds of different currencies were in circulation. Taxes were due to the counties, and were often paid with mixed currencies, and goods that were then auctioned off to generate cash.

It is interesting to see that even a notable person like Patrick Henry had difficulty paying his tax bill, how he urgently sought to pay it, the various types of currencies involved, and the interwoven web of relationships between borrowers and lenders. Autograph Letter Signed, Virginia, September 26, 1782, to the Sheriff of Patrick Henry County, Maj. Peter Hairston. "I send you Certificates for £11.10, an Order on Capt. Wills for 50 shillings, & Capt. Saunders for £3.2, which he owes me for my Wages below, & desired me to give you an order to receive, for which I have his letter. I send also 1 Guinea, 1 pistole, being every farthing I can raise. I count the gold £2.10.0 and the whole £19.12. I am in hopes to collect some more today at court, as I am going there if the pain does not stop me, & expect to see you there."  The notes on the verso, apparently in the hand of Sheriff Hairston, are unrelated and concern an execution on property.

The Peter Saunders mentioned above was his fellow delegate from Patrick Henry County to the Virginia House of Delegates. He had apparently borrowed money from Henry, which was taken from Henry's salary as a delegate. In this letter, Saunders' funds are being redirected to repay that money not to Henry, but to Sheriff Hairston on account of Henry's taxes. Henry also states that he has come up with as much money as he possibly can, in a combination of a bank note, pounds sterling (a guinea was 27 shillings), and one pistole (a Spanish gold coin). A farthing was the smallest coin in British currency, being worth a quarter of one penny.

As for the urgency, a document dated about a month later shows funds from Henry being diverted directly to Colonel Martin to fund his activities. So the tax money Henry is paying here was put to use defending the Virginia frontier, a purpose that Henry supported wholeheartedly.

Letters of Henry have become extremely scarce, and this is the first we have had in some years.