THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 26, 1996 TAG: 9605240693
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GEORGE TUCKER<
LENGTH: 73 lines
Patrick Henry (1736-1799), born 260 years ago this coming Wednesday, is justly remembered as one of the principal Virginia torchbearers of the American Revolution. What is generally not known, however, is that during the period of Henry's most explosive political activity his life was saddened by the insanity of his first wife who had to be kept under restraint during the last four years of her life.
Henry, who was only 18 when he married 16-year-old Sarah Shelton in 1754, had probably known her since childhood as their families lived near one another in Hanover County. The marriage was also apparently a matter of experience, since a footnote in one of Henry's biographies states: ``There is a hint in the records that the formalization of the union was hastened by untoward developments.''
Sarah's father was John Shelton, a prosperous planter and owner-operator of the tavern at Hanover Courthouse. Her mother, before her marriage, was Eleanor Parks, a daughter of William Parks, the Virginia colony's first public printer who also founded the Virginia Gazette, a weekly newspaper, in 1736, the year of Henry's birth.
Sarah's parents appear to have not been pleased with the union of their daughter with the lanky youth whose legal and oratorical prowess was then undeveloped. Henry's parents also shared the Sheltons' concern, ``not that they objected to Sarah, for she was dear and sweet,'' but because they felt Patrick was ``over-young'' to marry.
Even so, Sarah's parents arose to the occasion and provided her with a dowry of six slaves, a loan and a small farm on which the couple lived until their home and most of their belongings were destroyed by fire a few years later. By then, however, young Henry's ambition had begun to manifest itself. In 1760, he was admitted to the bar and shortly afterward he became a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in Williamsburg. It was there that he offered his famous resolutions against the Stamp Act in May 1765.
By 1771, Henry had prospered sufficiently to buy Scotchtown, a large plantation in Hanover County, and it was to that place that he moved with his family soon afterward. Then tragedy struck!
Shortly after giving birth to her sixth and last child, Sarah Henry became mentally deranged, a condition that became increasingly worse until she lost her sanity completely. Her descent into madness coincided with the establishment in Williamsburg of the first public institution in British North America devoted exclusively to the care and treatment of the mentally ill, a facility that has been described as ``a foul prison, a shrieking bedlam, (and) a sheer horror.''
Faced with the alternative of confining his wife in this hellhole or keeping her at Scotchtown, Henry chose the latter. Sarah was placed under strict confinement in a basement room where she was waited on by Negro housemaids and was occasionally visited by the family doctor. Frequently violent, Sarah Henry had to be kept bound fast in what was then known as a ``strait-dress'' as well as being strapped down to prevent her from destroying herself or bringing harm to those who waited on her.
It is also reported that ``When not off on necessary business, Henry would go downstairs several times a day to comfort his distressed wife, feed her and talk with her. Conversation was difficult, for Sarah was usually off in some far-away fantasy world of her own.''
Sarah Henry died in the spring of 1775 and was apparently buried at Scotchtown even though no record exists to confirm this surmise. Two years later, Henry married Dorothea Dandridge, a granddaughter of Alexander Spotswood, one of Virginia's earlier and most popular royal governors. By his second wife, Henry had 10 more children, making a grand total of 16 offspring by his two wives.
As one member of the Henry family later remarked wittily: ``He (Patrick Henry) rocked the cradle almost continuously until he was well nigh into his grave.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
In public, Patrick Henry was a dynamic orator. He gave his famous
resolutions against the Stamp Act in May 1765. But in private, his
wife's ill health saddened him. by CNB