The Second Virginia Convention was called to order at the Henrico Parish Church in Richmond, built in the 1740s on Indian Town Hill and set in a yard which in time became bounded by Broad, Grace, Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth streets. In 1772 a north wing was added, and it was in this building that the Second Virginia Convention met. Indian Town Hill, which was also called Richmond Hill, came in time to be called Church Hill, after the church building, which itself was variously called Indian Town Church, New Church, Old Church, Henrico Parish Church, and the Town Church. The present name, St. John’s Church, first appeared in the early nineteenth century (RAWLINGS description begins James Scott Rawlings. Virginia’s Colonial Churches: An Architectural Guide together with their Surviving Books, Silver, & Furnishings. Richmond, 1963. description ends , 165–68).

The house of Richard Adams (c.1726–1800) was about a block from the church (SCOTT description begins Mary Wingfield Scott. Houses of Old Richmond. Richmond, Va., 1941. description ends , 12). Adams, who bought up so many lots in the area that Church Hill was sometimes called Adams Hill, became a successful merchant and entrepreneur (SCOTT description begins Mary Wingfield Scott. Houses of Old Richmond. Richmond, Va., 1941. description ends , 12–13; HEADS OF FAMILIES, VA description begins Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790: Virginia; Records of the State Enumerations, 1782 to 1785. 1908. Reprint. Baltimore, 1970. description ends ., 112, 115; MORDECAI description begins Samuel Mordecai. Virginia, Especially Richmond, in By-Gone Days; with a Glance at the Present: Being Reminiscences and Last Words of an Old Citizen. 2d ed. Richmond, 1860. description ends , 45, 137). He represented Henrico County in the House of Burgesses 1769–75 and in all five Virginia conventions.

Col. Archibald Cary (1720–1787) lived at Ampthill, on the south side of the James River in Chesterfield County, the county he represented in the House of Burgesses 1756–75 and in the Virginia conventions. The Ampthill house and major dependencies have since been moved to a site in Richmond (WATERMAN description begins Thomas Tileston Waterman. The Mansions of Virginia, 1706–1776. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1946. description ends , 212–16; ROTHERY description begins Agnes Rothery. Houses Virginians Have Loved. New York, 1954. description ends , 254–56).