Tryon Palace facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Tryon Palace |
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Main façade of Tryon Palace
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| Alternative names | Governor's House Governor's Palace |
| General information | |
| Status | Rebuilt, used as a house museum |
| Architectural style | Georgian |
| Address | 529 South Front Street |
| Town or city | New Bern, North Carolina |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 35°06′20.9″N 77°02′39.5″W / 35.105806°N 77.044306°W |
| Opened | April 8, 1959 |
| Owner | Government of North Carolina |
| Management | North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 2 |
Tryon Palace, also known as the Governor's House or Governor's Palace, is a beautiful two-story building in New Bern, North Carolina. It is a careful copy of the first palace built in 1770 by architect John Hawks. Sadly, the original building was destroyed by a fire in 1798.
From 1770 until the American Revolution, the first palace was the official home and office for the British governors of North Carolina. In 1775, local soldiers took control of the palace. After the American Revolutionary War ended in 1783, the palace was used for the first meetings of North Carolina's state government. It served as the state house until 1792, when the capital moved to Raleigh.
The palace you see today was rebuilt on the original spot in the 1950s. It opened to the public as a museum in 1959. The gardens, which cover about 16 acres, were also recreated. They show how gardens looked over three centuries. Today, Tryon Palace is a historic site owned by the state.
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Building the First Palace
William Tryon was a British officer and a leader for the British government. He was the governor of North Carolina from 1765 to 1771. Governor Tryon believed North Carolina needed a central government building. He worked with architect John Hawks to design a grand government house. In 1766, the North Carolina government agreed to spend £5,000 on the building.
However, Governor Tryon said this amount was not enough for his plans. He believed it would cost at least £10,000, even without the extra buildings he wanted. Hawks agreed to manage the building work for three years. Tryon sent him to Philadelphia to hire skilled workers. He felt that workers in North Carolina might not know how to build such a large structure. Governor Tryon convinced the government to raise taxes to pay for the house.
In 1770, Governor Tryon and his wife, Margaret Wake, moved into the new building. At that time, "palace" was a common word for any important public building. The house was very fancy and grand for the American colonies.
The high cost of the palace caused a lot of anger among the people in North Carolina. They felt the taxes were too high already. This extra tax was a big reason for the War of the Regulation. This was a conflict where people protested against the government. Governor Tryon left North Carolina on June 30, 1771. He became the governor of New York. He had only lived in the palace for a little over a year.
In May 1775, when the American Revolutionary War began, Governor Josiah Martin left the palace. Rebels took control of the building and used it as their government center. The first meetings of the new state's government were held there. Many of the palace's furnishings were sold to help pay for the new government. North Carolina joined the United States in 1789. Three years later, the state capital moved to Raleigh. Four state governors lived in the palace. They were Richard Caswell, Abner Nash, Alexander Martin, and Richard Dobbs Spaight.
After the capital moved, the palace was used for different things. It was a school, a boarding house, and a meeting place for a group called the Masons. In 1798, a fire started in the cellar and destroyed the main palace building. Only the Kitchen and Stable Offices were saved. The Kitchen Office was later taken down. Today, only the Stable Office from the original buildings still stands.
Rebuilding the Palace
In the 1930s, people started a movement to save the historic buildings in New Bern. This effort grew stronger when the original plans for the palace were found. In 1944, Mrs. James Edwin Latham, who was from New Bern, asked the state for help. She also started a special fund just for restoring the palace. In 1945, the North Carolina government created the Tryon Palace Commission. This group of 25 people was tasked with rebuilding the palace using the original plans. The state agreed to take care of the palace once it opened to the public.
Sadly, Mrs. Latham passed away in 1951 and did not see the palace rebuilt. Her daughter, Mae Gordon Kellenberger, then took over the project. One of the first challenges was moving more than 50 buildings. They also had to change the path of U.S. Highway 70 and build a new bridge. These structures were sitting on top of the original palace foundations. Before construction could begin, archaeologists had to dig and study the site. Once building started, skilled workers from all over the United States were hired. People also traveled to the United Kingdom to find furniture that matched the time period. Finally, in 1959, the public could visit the rebuilt palace for the first time.
Exploring the Site
The Palace Buildings
The Tryon Palace Historic Site includes several buildings besides the main palace. The Stable Offices is the only original building that is still standing. The Kitchen Office is a separate building from the palace. This was common for buildings of that time. After the 1798 fire, the land was divided and sold. In the early 1830s, the George W. Dixon House was built for a wealthy merchant and former mayor of New Bern. The Robert Hay House was built in the early 1800s. It was bought in 1816 by Robert Hay, a Scottish immigrant. The John Wright Stanly House is a great example of Georgian architecture. It was home to several important families during the American Revolution and other key times in history. The New Bern Academy was the first school in North Carolina created by law in 1766. Like the palace, the original academy building burned down in 1795. The current building was built between 1806 and 1809.
Beautiful Gardens
The palace's 16 acres of gardens show how gardening has changed over three centuries. The gardens today are designed in a style that brings back the look of earlier periods. They include an 18th-century Wilderness Garden with native plants. These are the plants that the first European settlers saw in this area. There are also lush displays that were popular in the Victorian era.
Governor Tryon did not seem very interested in gardening. However, two maps of New Bern drawn by Claude J. Sauthier in 1769 show two different garden plans. This was when the palace was still being built.
More than 200 years later, in 1991, researchers found another garden plan. They found it in Venezuela. Palace architect John Hawks had given this plan to a traveler named Francisco de Miranda. Miranda admired the palace when he visited New Bern in 1783. This plan suggests a strong French influence, which is different from the English garden style you might expect.
It is likely the work of Sauthier, who was born in France in 1736. He was trained as a mapmaker. In 1763, he wrote a book about public buildings and garden planning. This book showed a strong influence from two French master gardeners. One of them trained with the designer of Versailles.
Sauthier came to America before the American Revolution to work as a mapmaker. In 1768, Governor Tryon hired him to draw maps of North Carolina towns, including New Bern. The style of the town maps and the garden plan found in Venezuela are very similar. This suggests that Sauthier created all of them.
None of these old garden plans have ever been built at the palace. The gardens you see today were designed by Morley Williams when the palace was rebuilt. Before working on the palace, Williams had helped restore the gardens at places like Mount Vernon. His designs are in a style that was popular in the mid-20th century.
When the North Carolina History Center opened in 2010, the gardens added a new area. This area is filled with many different plants that grow near rivers in coastal North Carolina. These plants can survive both floods and dry times. They also provide food and shelter for many animals.
The North Carolina History Center
In October 2010, Tryon Palace opened the North Carolina History Center. This is a large, 60,000-square-foot building on six acres. It has interactive exhibits and programs that bring history to life. The new building contains two main museums: the Pepsi Family Center and the Regional History Museum. It also has a museum store, classrooms, a modern performing arts hall with 200 seats, a café by the water, and office spaces.
Visitors enter the Pepsi Family Center through a "virtual time machine." It takes them to the year 1835 in Craven County. Here, you can pretend to be people from the past and try many hands-on activities. This center offers a fun learning adventure for families. You can work together to sail a ship, make turpentine, sew an electronic quilt, or help a shopkeeper find items for customers.
The Regional History Museum has changed from a traditional museum with just artifacts. Now, it uses layered graphics, videos, and interactive displays. It takes visitors on a journey to explore how the central coast of North Carolina connects with the rest of the world. It shows how local events affected, or were affected by, state, national, and international events.
The North Carolina History Center is located on a six-acre site next to the Governor's Palace and downtown New Bern. This area used to be an industrial site that needed cleaning up. It was once a major source of pollution for the Neuse River. The cleanup was managed by the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
This project was designed to be eco-friendly. It includes wetlands that clean rainwater runoff from a 50-acre area of New Bern. The runoff is collected in a large underground tank. This water is then reused for watering plants and refilling the wetlands. The parking area also has a special surface that lets water soak into the ground. The building itself is made from recycled materials. All the equipment is checked to make sure it works efficiently. The North Carolina History Center is planned to receive a special certification for its eco-friendly design.
The outdoor areas have exhibits that encourage visitors to learn about the natural history of the coast. You can also learn about John Lawson, a naturalist and explorer who lived in eastern North Carolina in 1710. Learning about how settlers used the land in the 1700s helps visitors understand good environmental practices today.
See also
In Spanish: Palacio de Tryon para niños
