Tryon Palace

 Tryon Palace, formerly called Governor's Palace, Newbern, was the official residence and administrative headquarters of the British governors of North Carolina from 1770 to 1775. Located in New Bern, North Carolina, the palace was often at the center of state occasions and hospitality. The residence was seized by patriot troops in 1775. Shortly after the state capital was relocated to Raleigh in 1792, the main building burned to the ground. A modern recreation faithful to the original architect's plans and some period appropriate support structures were erected on the site in the 1950s and opened to the public in 1959. The palace garden was also recreated, with 16 acres (6.5 ha) of plantings, representing three centuries of landscape and gardening heritage. Today, the palace is a state historic site.

Alleged portrait of William Tryon, the first governor to reside at the palace, moved into the newly completed residence in 1770. There are no known authentic portraits of the eighth British governor.

William Tryon was a British officer and colonial official who served as the Governor of North-Carolina from 1765 to 1771. Tryon had seen the need for a centrally-located Government House while lieutenant governor. After assuming office Governor Tryon worked with architect John Hawks to draw up plans for a government house similar to other British colonial structures of the time. In December 1766, the North Carolina legislature authorized £5,000 for the building of an "Edifice".

Tryon told the legislature that the sum was not substantial enough for the plans he and Hawk had created; building it "in the plainest manner" would cost no less than £10,000 without including the outbuildings he envisioned. Hawks agreed to supervise the construction for three years and went to Philadelphia at Tryon's behest to hire workers; Tryon said native North Carolina workers would not know how to construct such a building.Tryon was able to convince the legislature to increase taxes for the house.

In 1770 Tryon and his wife, Margaret Wake, moved into the Palace; at the time, "palace" was a standard word for any public building of this type. The house was "a monument of opulence and elegance extraordinary in the American colonies.

The construction of the house exacted great controversy in the North Carolina backcountry where most viewed it as an unnecessary, extravagant display of England. Extra taxation to fund the project had been levied by the governor on the citizens of the province, who had already felt overburdened with taxation. It proved to be too much and served as a major catalyst in North Carolina's War of the Regulation; which culminated in the Battle of Alamance on May 16, 1771, and later led to the hanging of seven men. The unpopular Tryon left North Carolina on June 30, 1771, to become Governor of New York on July 8 of that year. He had only lived in the house a little more than a year. Oddly, Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan has also retained its name even though William Tryon had served so very briefly as the last governor of New York province.

In May 1775, when the American Revolutionary War began, Governor Josiah Martin fled the mansion. Rebels seized the Palace and retained it as their seat of government. The new state's first general assemblies were held there and many of the furnishings were auctioned off to fund its administration. North Carolina was admitted to the newly formed United States in 1789. Three years later, the North Carolina State House was built in Raleigh as the state capitol. Four state governors lived in the palace – Richard Caswell, Abner Nash, Alexander Martin, and U.S. Founding Father Richard Dobbs Spaight.

The Palace was subsequently used for several different purposes, including a school, a boarding house, and a Masonic lodge. A cellar fire started in 1798, consuming the Palace proper. Only the Kitchen and Stable Offices were saved. However, the Kitchen Office was razed at the beginning of the 19th century. Of the original buildings, only the Stable Office still stands.

In the 1930s, a movement began to preserve Colonial New Bern. The movement was bolstered by the discovery of the original Palace plans. Mrs. James Edwin Latham, a New Bern native, asked the state to assist the restoration efforts in 1944 and opened a trust fund committed purely to restoring the Palace. The General Assembly organized the Tryon Palace Commission in 1945. This Commission consisted of 25 people appointed by the governor, with the task of rebuilding the Palace using the original plans. The state agreed to be responsible for the Palace once it opened to the public.

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3614 Old Cherry Point Rd. New Bern, NC 28560

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