Parson Cause News Today

Through the efforts of a small group of dedicated community members, interest in Patrick Henry is returning to Hanover.

SUMMARY Patrick Henry was a lawyer, orator, and statesman whose career spanned the founding of the United States. An early critic of British authority and leader in the movement toward independence, Henry dedicated most of his life to Virginia politics. He served as a member of the House of Burgesses (1765–1774), as the first governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia (1776–1779), as a member of the House of Delegates (1779–1784; 1788–1791), and again as governor (1784–1786). He was a f...

Print Made from Bodleian CopperplateDawson was born in April 1715, probably in Cumberland County, England, and was the son of William Dawson and, most likely, Ellen Troughere Dawson. He received his primary education in England and about 1735, traveled to Virginia, where his brother William Dawson was professor of moral philosophy at the College of William and Mary. Thomas Dawson studied mathematics and natural philosophy before becoming a student of divinity under the direction of his brother....

William Hunter was born in Yorktown, the son of an Elizabeth City County merchant, also named William Hunter (d. 1742), and his second wife Mary Ann Hunter (d. 1743). He also was half-brother to Colonel John Hunter, the Hampton merchant who became commissary for British forces in America during the French and Indian War (1754–1763), as well as confidante to Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie. Shortly after their parents’ deaths, Hunter’s sister Elizabeth Hunter married John Holt, the o...