Tryon Palace ~ New Bern, NC

Tryon Palace was originally built between 1767 and 1770, as the first permanent capitol of the Colony of North Carolina and a home for the Royal Governor and his family. Governor William Tryon had brought John Hawks, an English architect, with him when he came to North Carolina in 1764. Hawks designed the Palace in the manner of a number of fashionable houses in the vicinity of London-- Georgian in style, with symmetry maintained throughout. It was soon regarded to be the finest public building in the American colonies.

Governor Tryon, his wife Margaret Wake Tryon, and their daughter Margaret, lived in the Palace for just over a year. They left New Bern in June 1771, when Governor Tryon was appointed to the governorship of New York. (from the official website: http://www.tryonpalace.org/history.html)

Now, according to our guide, conventional wisdom says that Tryon begged to be moved to New York to escape the miserable summers in New Bern, North Carolina!

The second Governor, Josiah Martin, fled the palace in the face of the American Revolution and patriots made it their capitol and the first sessions of the General Assembly met there. The building was eventually abandoned, and on an evening in 1798, the building was destroyed by a fire.

What's really cool is that this is a reconstruction, built using the original plans and spearheaded by a group of very determined women who started back in the '30s to get the Palace reconstructed.

The original site had been built over with roads and houses, and the reconstruction involved moving all those things and then excavating the original site. This involved removing more than 50 buildings and rerouting North Carolina Route 70, including a bridge over the Trent River. The reconstruction is built on the original foundation! It was finally completed and opened to the public in 1959.

The only building that was remaining was this one ~ the horse stables.
When the house caught fire, the townspeople tore down the wooden walkway to save the outbuildings.

There are 14 acres of gardens.

During redevelopment,they also moved some of the other historic houses in town to this site. This is the George W. Dixon house, circa 1830.

The ticket for this is a real bargain at $15. You get the tour of the palace, 3 houses, a blacksmith shop and the gardens and they give you two days to take it all in.

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New Bern is also the birthplace of Pepsi!

A very unassuming store, which was a pharmacy when Caleb Branham invented the drink. You can purchase a drink or branded items and watch a video loop giving the history of the soft drink.

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These are just photos of my favorite house, so far.