Robert Pryor Henry (1788-1826) - Find a Grave Memorial

US Congressman. Elected to represent Kentucky's 12th District in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Congresses, he served from 1823 until his death. Henry was born in Henrys Mills, Kentucky, in what was then a part of Virginia. He graduated from Transylvania College in Lexington, where he majored in the classics, studied law privately with Henry Clay, and was admitted to the bar in 1809. During the War of 1812 he was an aide to his father, General William Henry, holding the rank of Major, and participated in Isaac Shelby's successful 1813 campaign against the British. He subsequently practiced law in Hopkinsville, serving as prosecuting attorney in 1819. Henry made his initial bid for the US House as a Jackson Republican but later became a full-fledged Jacksonian. Known as a learned and eloquent speaker who also had a penchant for practical jokes, he was so popular in his home district that he ran for his second Congressional term unopposed. He died unexpectedly of a fever at his home in Hopkinsville, at the age of 37. There is a cenotaph honoring his memory at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC.

Bio by: Bobb Edwards