St. John’s Episcopal Church, built in 1741, the oldest in the city, will
forever be famous as the place where Patrick Henry uttered his ringing
challenge for “Liberty or Death” to the American colonists. The second
Virginia convention met in St. John’s, because it was the largest hall
in Richmond, in March, 1775, and even at that, the original was not half
the size of the enlarged present-day structure. It is worth your while
to get out here and let the sexton show you the church and tell you
briefly of its story. On the left, as you face the church, you will see
the grave of Elizabeth Arnold Poe, the tiny actress-mother of America’s
great imaginative writer. Young Edgar Poe is said to have been found
more than once lying sobbing on his mother’s grave. ¶ _Proceed east on
Broad to Twenty-eighth; right on Twenty-eighth two blocks to Franklin._