Missouri State Capital Rotunda

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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DEDICATION CEREMONY OF RICHARD GENTRY'S HISTORIC MARKER

MISSOURI CAPITAL ROTUNDA

MONDAY, OCTOBER 19 at NOON

Missouri’s Webster Groves Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution will dedicate an historic market in honor of Revolutionary War Patriot, Richard Gentry, on Monday, October 19 at noon in the Capital's Rotunda. Richard Gentry's grave in the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis bears the epitaph: "PRESENT AT THE CAPTURE OF CORNWALLIS"---
Serving as a member of the Honor Guard that escorted the defeated Lord Cornwallis off the field at the Revolutionary Battle of Yorktown, was the highlight of this Virginian's long and prosperous life. With two successive wives he fathered 19 children, eight of whom settled in Mo. after the War of 1812. However it was this glorious memory of his participation in the most decisive of the Revolutionary battles that he wished his descendants to remember.

Catherine Favazza, originally from St. Louis, Mo., a member of the Webster Groves Chapter of DAR and a descendant of Richard Gentry will introduce Elizabeth Gentry Sayad of St. Louis. Sayad, Gentry’s great-great-great-granddaughter, will deliver historical and familial anecdotes about her dynamic ancestor. She descends from Revolutionary Richard's son and namesake, General Richard Gentry, who was a Seminole Indian War hero for whom Gentry County, Mo., was named.

Other descendants who will be present include Richard Harrison Gentry and Helene Elizabeth Todd Sayad of St. Louis and Amos Harris of St. Louis, related to Richard Gentry's first wife, Jane Harris. She was a great granddaughter of Virginia's first Colonial Secretary, William Claibourn, who came to Jamestown, Va., in 1621 following his appointment by England's King James.
Richard Gentry was born in Louisa County, Va., in 1763. He matured in Albemarle Co., Va., where he enlisted in 1781 and served under Captain Benjamin Harris who would later become is brother-in-law. Albemarle Co. was the American hotbed of the French "Enlightenment." Thomas Jefferson and William Clark were leaders of the ideals to be set forth in the "Declaration of Independence" and its precursor, "Les Droits des Hommes," and the exploratory expeditions following the Louisiana Purchase. Richard Gentry grew up in the heady and challenging environment of Albemarle's colonial taverns and firesides.

Although Jefferson never crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains, Richard Gentry and his family joined other post-Revolutionary migrants through the Cumberland Gap to the fertile blue grass land of Madison County, Ky. He successfully traded there as a salt producer and merchant. Later he developed large herds of cattle and other livestock on a large plantation where he built the third brick home in Kentucky.

In 1959, William Richard Gentry, Jr., Mrs. Sayad's father, gained permission to move Richard Gentry from a neglected family cemetery to Jefferson Barracks, near the grave of his son, General Richard Gentry.

The DAR enjoy a long tradition of recognizing Revolutionary Patriots.