The Tryon Palace

As this is my last weekend in Jacksonville, I decided to take a quick trip up to New Bern (at less than an hour drive from my apartment, not a bad day trip). One of the main attractions is the Tryon Palace Historical Site and Gardens. The Tryon Palace is the first government house for North Carolina, built between 1767 and 1770 by Royal Governer William Tryon. New Bern was North Carolina's first permanent capitol, and this was their government building and the residence of the governor. In the Colonial periods, the governors were appointed by England's King George III (whose painting was in the legislature room to remind them who was their boss, the king actually paid for and sent the painting over for that purpose). The home was allowed to be called a palace because it was a place where government business took place. It's actual name was "The Palace," however, it became known in history as 'The Tryon Palace' because William Tryon was not well liked, and he raised taxes to have this house built to his standards. Not to mention, he only lived in the house for 13 months, because as he was appointed governor to NC, he had already applied for governor of NY (as that governor was on his sick bed, and Tryon did not like North Carolina). Actually, the South was not the desirable place to live at the time because of Malaria from the mosquitoes. At the time, they did not know the bugs were to cause, and thought it was just the hot, humid weather (also why George Washington did not come visit South of Virginia until he was up for Re-Election and had to for publicity, and he only did so in March when it was not hot/humid so he wouldn't get sick).
The original Tryon Palace was destroyed by fire in 1798, and more than 150 years later (or 50 years ago) the palace was reconstructed using the original construction plans and information found in letters and excavation. As William Tryon took all of the original furnishings with him when he moved to New York (he made the tax payers pay for the construction, but he was nice enough to foot the bill for all of the furnishings- probably because he knew he would be moving soon, and wanted to take his things with him), and his home in New York burned down, they used the claims ticket that he filed to suspect what was in the original Tryon Palace. Wow, that must have been a lot of leg work to figure all of that out! The preservation society then went to find originals or replicas of everything they could to make the Tryon Palace what it is today. It was a great place to visit, and definitely interesting to hear all of the history.