{"id":1502,"slug":"historic-st-john-s-church-richmond-virginia","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["St. John's Church is the liberty church — the 1741 Richmond church where Patrick Henry said 'Give me liberty or give me death' on March 23, 1775, the largest building in the city that hosted the Second Virginia Convention with Washington and Jefferson in the pews. The speech swept the colony to war.","The church was the room — the simple rectangle Richard Randolph built on Byrd's land, the 1772 addition that was the nave when Henry spoke, the largest public building in Richmond. The speech was the prophecy: 'the war is actually begun' — Lexington and Concord came within weeks.","The church is still there — the National Historic Landmark, the churchyard with George Wythe and Edgar Allan Poe's mother, the 40,000 visitors a year. The file keeps the speech: the 1741 church, the 1775 words that started the war, and the building that's the Revolution's birthplace.","St. John's is the archive's liberty file — the church where Henry spoke, the convention that went to war, and the building that's the Revolution's room."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["St. John's is the archive's liberty file — the church where the Revolution's call was made, the speech that swept Virginia, and the building that's the landmark.","A church that heard liberty keeps its pew — the file's suggestion being that St. John's hold is the speech: the largest room in Richmond, Henry's words, and the church that's the Revolution's starting point."]}],"name":"Historic St. John's Church","aliases":[],"type":"CHURCH","type_label":"Church","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["hauntings","institutions"],"desc":"Church associated with published local folklore.","full_desc":"Historic St. John's Church is a church in Richmond, Virginia. Church associated with published local folklore. HauntHunt files it with haunting reports. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 documented fact — documented record and retelling kept side by side. Access details are unverified — research before visiting. The dossier keeps the place and the story in the same record — which is what the archive is for.","address":null,"city":"Richmond","county":null,"state":"Virginia","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":37.531399,"lon":-77.476009,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Discovery record. Coordinates, earliest legend source, independent history and current visitor rules require further verification.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":53.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.6,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":730,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Virginia Tourism recounts a colonial figure near the pulpit. Sacred ground in Richmond, Virginia keeps its own kind of haunting — quieter, and harder to dismiss. 'Eight of the Most Haunted American Revolution Sites in…' preserves the telling; the record keeps it filed where it belongs, as lore. The apparition is the file's anchor — every other report orbits it.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.75,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Eight of the Most Haunted American Revolution Sites in Virginia","url":"https://www.virginia.org/blog/post/haunted-revolution-sites/","publisher":"Virginia Tourism Corporation","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Patrick Henry delivered his 1775 speech here. A church with centuries of documented ministry gives the file real ground to stand on. Media accounts document it — reported history rather than legend. The record appears in 'Eight of the Most Haunted American Revolution Sites in…'. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.","evidence":"MEDIA_REPORTED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Eight of the Most Haunted American Revolution Sites in Virginia","url":"https://www.virginia.org/blog/post/haunted-revolution-sites/","publisher":"Virginia Tourism Corporation","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Virginia Tourism recounts a colonial figure near the pulpit. Sacred ground in Richmond, Virginia keeps its own kind of haunting — quieter, and harder to dismiss. 'Eight of the Most Haunted American Revolution Sites in…' preserves the telling; the record keeps it filed where it belongs, as lore. 'Eight of the Most Haunted American Revolution Sites in…' carries the account. The legend does what legends do — it explains the place in a way the records can't.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Eight of the Most Haunted American Revolution Sites in Virginia","url":"https://www.virginia.org/blog/post/haunted-revolution-sites/","publisher":"Virginia Tourism Corporation","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Eight of the Most Haunted American Revolution Sites in Virginia","url":"https://www.virginia.org/blog/post/haunted-revolution-sites/","publisher":"Virginia Tourism Corporation","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"St. John's Episcopal Church (Richmond, Virginia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John's_Episcopal_Church_(Richmond%2C_Virginia)","desc":"Historic church in Virginia, United States","extract":"St. John's Church is an Episcopal church located at 2401 East Broad Street in Richmond, Virginia, United States. Formed from several earlier parishes, St. John's is the oldest church in the city of Richmond, Virginia. It was built in 1741 by William Randolph's son, Colonel Richard Randolph; the Church Hill district was named for it. It was the site of two important conventions in the period leading to the American Revolutionary War, and is famous as the location where American Founding Father Patrick Henry gave his memorable speech at the Second Virginia Convention, closing with the often-quoted demand, \"Give me liberty or give me death!\" The church is designated as a National Historic Landm","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/StJohnsRichmond.JPG/330px-StJohnsRichmond.JPG?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":37.53138889,"lon":-77.41972222},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}