Tryon Palace
Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens is a modern reconstruction of the historical colonial royal governors' palace of the Province of North Carolina.[1] It was constructed in the 1950s across the original mansion site located in the city of New Bern, North Carolina. Today it is a State Historic Site. The palace gardens are also well-renowned. 35°6′20″N 77°2′39″W / 35.10556°N 77.04417°W
History
Early history
While he had composed plans for an elaborate governor's mansion even before assuming the office of North Carolina's governor, after assuming office William Tryon worked with architect John Hawks during 1764 and 1765 to draw up plans for an elaborate home for himself.[2] In December 1766, the North Carolina legislature authorized 5,000 pounds for the building of Tryon's mansion.[2] 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 pounds without including the outbuildings he envisioned.[2] 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.[2] Tryon was able to convince the legislature to increase taxes for the house.[2] In 1770, Tryon moved into the palace.[2] The house was "a monument of opulance and elegance extraordinary in the American colonies."[2]
The building of the house exacted great controversy. 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 the Province of New York on July 8, 1771. He had only lived in the house a little more than a year.
In May 1775, when the American Revolution began, Governor Josiah Martin fled the mansion. Patriots seized the palace and converted it into the State capitol building. The first general assemblies were held there and many of the furnishings were auctioned by the newly-formed state government. Four men lived in the palace as governors of the new state - Richard Caswell, Abner Nash, Alexander Martin, and Richard Dobbs Spaight. After Raleigh was founded as the capitol in 1794, the palace was used for many different purposes, including a school, boarding house, and a Masonic lodge. A cellar fire started in 1798, consuming the palace proper. Only the kitchen and stable offices were saved. The kitchen offices were razed at the beginning of the 1800s. Of the original buildings, only the stable offices still stands.
Restoration and today
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. She opened a trust fund committed purely to restoring the palace. The General Assembly organized the Tryon Palace Commission in 1945. This consisted of 25 people appointed by the governor, with the task of rebuilding the palace by the original plans. The state agreed to be responsible for the palace once it opened to the public. Latham did not live to see the rebuilding of the palace. After her death in 1951, her daughter Mae Gordon Kellenberger oversaw the efforts. The first obstacles to overcome were moving as many as 50 or more buildings, rerouting US Highway 70, and building a new bridge over the Trent River. These structures covered the foundations of the original building. Archaeological work also had to be done before construction could begin. Once it did, craftspeople from all over the United States were recruited. There were also visits to the United Kingdom to procure period-accurate furniture. Finally, the public was able to visit for the first time in April 1959.
Palace structures
The Tryon Palace Historic Site includes several structures besides the main building. The stable offices are actually the only original structure still standing. The kitchen offices are separate from the palace, as was usual at the time. After the 1798 fire, the grounds were divided into lots and sold. In the early 1830s, a house (George W. Dixon House) was built for George W. Dixon, a wealthy merchant tailor, who was also a former mayor of New Bern. The Robert Hay House, built at the start of the 1800s, was purchased in 1816 by Robert Hay, a Scottish immigrant and wagon-maker. The John Wright Stanly House is an outstanding example of Georgian architecture and served as home to several generations of a remarkable family. Members of the Stanly family took active roles on the stage of American history during the American Revolution, the early national period, and the Civil War. The New Bern Academy was the first school in North Carolina established by legal mandate, in 1766. Like the palace, the original academy building was destroyed by fire, this one in 1795. The current structure was built between 1806 and 1809.
Gardens
Our 14 acres (57,000 m2) of gardens offer three centuries of gardening history. From the 18th-century Wilderness Garden with its native plants that greeted the first European settlers in this area, through the lush displays favored by the Victorians, to 20th-century colonial revival interpretations of earlier periods, our gardens offer almost endless variety.
The gardens at Tryon Palace are carefully maintained year-round, so regardless of when you visit, beauty abounds. What were the Palace Gardens really like?
We can only make intelligent guesses about what kind of gardens there might have been surrounding the 18th-century Palace. Governor Tryon seems to have had little interest in horticulture. Two maps of New Bern drawn in 1769, when the Palace was still under construction, reveal two different garden plans.
More than two centuries later, in 1991, Palace researchers discovered yet another plan. In the collections of the Academia Nacional de la Historia in Venezuela they found a garden plan that came from Palace architect, John Hawks. Hawks gave the plan to Venezuelan traveler Francisco de Miranda, who admired the Palace greatly when he visited New Bern in 1783. The Miranda plan suggests a strong French influence instead of the more-to-be-expected English garden style.
Most likely Claude Sauthier drew up the plan given to Miranda. Sauthier was born in France in 1736, and trained as a draftsman. In 1763 he wrote a Treatis on Public Architecture and Garden Planning that reflects a strong influence of two 18th-century French master gardeners, one of whom trained with the designer of Versailles.
Sauthier came to America before the Revolution to work as a mapmaker. In 1768, Governor Tryon employed him to draw a series of North Carolina town maps, including one of New Bern. Similarities of style between the town maps and the garden plan discovered in Venezuela suggest that Sauthier created them all.
None of the historic garden plans has ever been implemented at the Palace. The current gardens were designed by Morley Williams at the time of the Palace Restoration. Before undertaking the Palace project, Williams had served on the faculties of Harvard and North Carolina State Universities and assisted in the restoration of the gardens at Mount Vernon and Stratford Hall. His designs are in the colonial revival style that was widely employed in the mid 20th century.
References
- ^ official tourism site
- ^ a b c d e f g Bishir, Catherine (2005). North Carolina Architecture. UNC Press. pp. 55–58. ISBN 080785624X.
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External links
- Tryon Palace Historic Site & Gardens - official site
- The Palace
- Gardens
- Events
- Historic Homes
- "Tryon Palace". Carolina Clips. NC Department of Public Instruction.
- "Tryon Palace Historic Site". NC Encyclopedia. State Library of NC.
- Feser, Edward; Renski, Henry (March 1999). "The Impact of Tryon Palace on Historic Preservation, Education, and the Economy" (PDF). Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.