Talk to Highlight Patrick Henry’s
Early Interest in Religious Freedom

Dr. C. Jan Swearingen, Professor of English Emerita at Texas A&M University, will speak on “Sermons and Sedition: Patrick Henry and the Presbyterians of Virginia” at 7 p.m. March 22 at the University of Richmond’s Jepson Hall.

Her talk is the latest offering in the Historic Polegreen Church Foundation’s lecture series on the beginnings of religious and civil liberties in Colonial Virginia. Admission is free.

Dr. Swearingen’s scholarship encompasses the influence of Samuel Davies, first pastor at Polegreen in the mid-1700s , on young Henry who later said Davies “taught me what it is to be an orator.”
Noted internationally for her work on how rhetoric relates to religious freedom, Dr. Swearingen’s most recent book is From Church to State: Rhetoric, Religion and the Transformation of Liberty in Colonial Virginia 1740-1776.  Her scholarship includes examination of the relationship between Henry and the Shelton family of Rural Plains, whose daughter Sarah was Henry’s first wife.

The presentation will be in Lecture Room 120 of Jepson Hall, the School of Leadership Studies at UR. It is accessible from either Richmond Way or Gateway Road near both the School of Law and Robins School of Business.

The Historic Polegreen Church Foundation commemorates and interprets the struggle for religious freedom during the 1700s in Virginia Colony. It does so at the original site of Polegreen Church, an evocative recreation of which highlights its property just off Rural Point Road near its intersection with Pole Green Road in Hanover County.

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For more information contact: Doug Blue – 804-730-3837 or Beth Young – 804-730-3837

6411 Heatherwood Drive, Mechanicsville, Va. 23116 –804-730-3837





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