
Founding Father Patrick Henry was born on May 29, 1736, in Hanover County, Virginia, in a plantation home later lost to a devastating fire in 1807. He grew up to become the legendary orator whose “liberty or death” speech became one of the Revolution’s defining calls for resistance. What many do not realize is that before finding his voice, he spent his young adulthood teaching himself law in disciplined solitude—a steady beginning for the man who would become one of the nation’s loudest voices for freedom.

