Elizabeth Henry Campbell Russell

This pencil sketch of Elizabeth Henry Campbell Russell was passed down through her descendants and eventually published in her grandson Thomas L. Preston’s A Sketch of Mrs. Elizabeth Russell, wife of General William Campbell, and sister of Patrick Henry (1888). Preston wrote that “in intellect and person she resembled her brother, Patrick Henry.” Born in Hanover County on July 10, 1749, Elizabeth Henry married William Campbell of Fincastle County on April 2, 1776. After Campbell’s death on August 22, 1781, she married Continental Army general William Russell. She converted to Methodism in 1788 and for religious reasons after her husband's death in 1793, freed all of the people she enslaved.