growing up as a teenager

Patrick Henry was born at Studley in Hanover County, Virginia, on May 29, l736. His father John Henry was a Scottish-born planter. His mother Sarah Winston Syme was a young widow from a prominent gentry family. Henry attended a local school for a few years and received the remainder of his formal education from his father, who had attended King’s College of the University of Aberdeen.

At fifteen Henry began working as a clerk for a local merchant. A year later, in 1752, he and his older brother William opened their own store, which promptly failed.