Historic St. John's Church — Attraction in Richmond

We found out this location was close to where we were staying . It is one of those types of stops; you don't realize how close you are until you start looking around deeper at places nearby. We had to add the stop to our list before we left Richmond.

We got to the church when they were opening up for the day. The gentleman that was there was apologizing for being so late to open up (but it was only 5 minutes). We talked to him about the freeway traffic we would hit when we left.

He asked us if we wanted to take a tour of the church. We had already read all the placards and said we had to go. The church offers a shortened tour that allows visitors to go inside for a brief period to see the interior and take pictures. We opted for that and had an extremely pleasant experience.

The docent was friendly and answered all our questions, even though we didn't take the full tour. She let us take as many photos and videos as we wanted, and we weren't rushed. Loved it.

We are so glad that we stopped here, and we want to thank the staff for treating us with the respect and consideration of a customer and traveling tourist. We wish we could give a sixth star.

We highly recommend you stop at this location if you find yourself in Richmond. We commend the individuals working on the morning of June 28, 2025, for their outstanding performance. We appreciate the efforts of the gentleman at the gift shop and the woman who guided us into the church. Thank you!

We will have a video and blog post coming out about this location sometime in January as we are extremely backed up on our media being...

The Second Virginia Convention met here in March of 1775 and the church remains active.

Patrick Henry introduced three resolutions during the convention and in defense of them delivered his "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death" speech.

The guide, Betty, was fantastic. She delivered the history of the church and the Second Virginia Convention with such enthusiasm. She also engaged the kids on the tour, which I thought was great.

In addition Betty spent some time discussing two of the people buried on the grounds. The mother of Edgar Allen Poe and George Wythe. Wythe was a singer of the Declaration of Independence, lawyer, and law professor. He taught law to Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall and many more. Wythe was poisoned by his nephew and died. A sad story worth checking in to.

St John's is worth a visit to.learn about Virginia's role in the run up to Independence.

The Liberty or Death Speech is reenacted during certain days of the year. Hoping to catch that...

The Patrick Henry, “Give Me Liberty or Death”, was excellent. First, St John’s historic church is beautiful. While waiting for the performance the audience enjoyed patriotic and etc performed by a wonderful pianist. She led us recognizing any military service people by asking them to stand when their service song was played and sung by the audience. We also recognized our country by singing our anthems (God Bless America and the Star-Spangled Banner). . This helped to set the experience in motion. The audience is encouraged to join the debate regarding the motion made by Patrick Henry to form a military preparing for what he predicted would happen with the King vs the colonies.The entire enactment explained, reminded us facts and ultimately made the audience aware if not for the courage of Patrick Henry and his vision to protect this new —struggling nation-off others had prevailed —one needs to consider we wouldn’t be living with the freedoms and liberties that blessed...