Court Opinion

ID: 9582964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:33:17.452359+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:36.221489
License: Public Domain

PARKER, J.,
concurring: The building called Tryon’s Palace was “the most elegant structure in America.” Marshall DeLancey Haywood’s “Governor William Tryon,” p. 193. It was not, however, simply a residence for the Royal Governor, but also served as a capitol or state house — containing a hall where the Assembly met, a council-chamber, and public offices.
John Hawks, who came to America with Governor Tryon, superintended its construction. It was built of brick and trimmed with marble. Skilled artisans were brought from Philadelphia to do the work. The plumbing was done by an expert who came over from England for the express purpose. The main building was three stories high. On each side was a two-storied building, connected with the central building by gracefully curving galleries. In front of the Palace was a handsome courtyard. The rear of the building was fashioned in the style of the Lord Mayor’s Residence in London. All the sashes and four of the mantel pieces were imported. In the council-chamber there was a chimney-piece containing decorations of Ionic statuary, with columns of sienna, the fretwork on the frieze being inlaid with the latter material. There were richly ornamented marble tablets on which were medallions of King George and his Queen.
The work of this noble structure was begun on 26 August 1767. In 1770 the house was ready for occupancy, and the public records were moved into it in January and February of the following year.
The opening of the Palace was celebrated by a grand ball. Of this entertainment we can catch a vivid glimpse through the clouds of old *397night in the correspondence between James Iredell and Sir Nathaniel Dukenfield, wherein the baronet writes how the dignified councillor, Samuel Cornell, “hopped a reel” at the close of the evening. McRee’s “Life and Correspondence of James Iredell,” Vol. I, p. 173. Little could those present on that festive occasion foresee that in less than two decades this Palace would be a mass of charred ruins.
Francois Xavier Martin, an early historian of the State, tells that he visited the Palace in company with the noted Venezuelan patriot, Don Francisco de Miranda, who said the building had no equal in South America.
This stately building and grounds, when completely restored, will whisper to countless generations of North Carolinians and others from the four ends of the earth:
“Tales of a brave and warlike race,
Of peace and strife, of death and life,
Of word and action bold.
It will tell of men long gone,
Of long forgotten ways;
And how our fathers wrought and fought In old colonial days.”
Quoted with slight variations from Marshall DeLancey Haywood’s poem in the dedication of his book, Governor Tryon, To the Memory of the Revolutionary Patriots of North Carolina.
Verse and legend and story have told of
“The stately homes of England
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O’er all the pleasant land.”
Many of these stately homes are being preserved by the English Government at public expense as a glorious memorial of the past, and millions who speak the English tongue will visit, now, and in the future, the land of their ancestors to see them. The princely benefaction of the Rocke-fellers in restoring Williamsburg has made universal the fame of the great Virginians of Colonial and Revolutionary Days.
When Tryon’s Palace is completely restored by State aid and the generous gifts of citizens of the State, and when countless thousands in the years that are ahead gaze upon the stately building, and stand in the hall where the Assembly met, and where in immediate Pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary Times patriotic North Carolinians debated and decided upon the principles that lie at the foundation of *398our constitutional rights as free men, they will stand in the presence of history as those great men live again, and will thrill with pride over how their fathers wrought and won for them their liberties “in old colonial days.” And each North Carolinian can say with great satisfaction, “this is my own, my native land.”
I completely agree with the statement in the Court’s opinion that the restoration of Tryon’s Palace serves a public purpose. I concur in the result.