The Restoration of Tryon Palace
The restoration process of Tryon Palace began in 1944 when Mrs. Maude Moore Latham, a New Bern native and Greensboro resident, established the first trust fund for $100,000 for the palace restoration (The News and Observer, 1959). She promised to restore the structure if the State would purchase the necessary land. She and some others persuaded the North Carolina General Assembly to appropriate $150,000 for land acquisition and to authorize the gubernatorial appointment of a Tryon Palace Commission to supervise the erection of the palace (The News and Observer, 1959). Mrs. Latham then set up a second trust of $150,000 in April of 1949 and the State then appropriated $77,000 for property (The News and Observer, 1959). Mrs. Latham, who truly loved the palace, then donated a collection of 18th century furnishings valued at $125,000 to the State for the restoration efforts. Mrs. Latham unfortunately died on April 8, 1951. She did, however, bequeath the residue of her estate, then valued at over $1,250,000 to the Tryon Palace Commission to assure the complete restoration (The News and Observer, 1959).
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Mrs. Latham’s daughter and son-in-law carried on her vision through the commission and increased the valuation of the trusts and bequests to not only pay for the main building itself, but for the furnishings, the landscaping of the grounds and the 18th century gardens. They also purchased twice as much land as was bought by the State, so that the restoration might include almost the entire original site (The News and Observer, 1959). |
With regard to the grounds, the aim of the Tryon Palace Commission has been to create a setting appropriate to the buildings surrounding it, as well as the 18th century, in general.
William G. Perry, of Boston, was hired on as the restoration architect of the palace. Morley J. Williams was put in charge of local site operations and excavations. The original drawings of the palace by John Hawks were found at the New York Historical Society Library in New York City and other later drawings were found afterwards in London (The News and Observer, 1959). This would give the men overseeing the restoration a reference point from which to work.
The physical research would begin in the West Wing by stripping modern work from the building. Roofs, floors, partitions, doors windows and coats of plaster, all dating to around 1907, were removed. After uncovering the wall surfaces it was discovered many changes had been made to the house since the original build date. With that being said, the structure still held on to most of the original bricks, with less than one-fifth of the bricks in the walls being new (The Tryon Palace Commission, 1959). No evidence of the roof remained, but the restoration followed a small Hawks sketch of framing for a similar roof (The Tryon Palace Commission, 1959).
The East Wing’s demolition had been so complete that no traces of its outline were evident at all. However, careful research made it possible to reestablish the original lines so that the position and size of the walls, fireplaces and door on the ground floor are now as they were in the original building (The Tryon Palace Commission, 1959). This wing was home for the office of the Governor’s Secretary and the second floor was probably used as living quarters.
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The east and west walls of the Main Building, which was the one that burned, were found intact to a depth of about five feet in the ground. This made it possible to establish the plan of the basement, as well as supporting piers and the position of fireplaces on the floor above. The other details of the building came from remnant bricks that were found and Hawk’s plans.
Furnishings for the palace were derived from Mrs. Latham’s donated collection of 18th century furniture, as well as purchases made that reflected a list of furnishings that had been outlined by Governor Tryon when his furnishings burnt in New York.
The restoration process was completed and opened to the public in 1959 as North Carolina’s first great public history project (The Palace, 2012).