Tryon's Request for a Palace. Maneuvers of his Family. Heavy Appropriation. View and Description of the Palace. It was at about this time that the pride and folly of Governor Tryon led him to make a demand upon the Assembly for an appropriation of twenty-five thousand dollars for the purpose of building a palace at Newbern "suitable for the residence of a royal governor." Το obtain this appropriation, Lady Tryon, and her sister Esther Wake,' both beautiful and accomplished women, used all the blandishments of their charms and society to influence the minds of the burgesses. Lady Tryon gave princely dinners and balls, and the governor finally succeeded in obtaining, not only the first appropriation asked, but another of fifty thousand dollars, to complete the edifice. It was pronounced the most magnificent struc true and faithful to this cause, until we bring things to a true regulation." styled "Sons of Liberty." These REGULATORS were also Wake county was so named in honor of this accomplished lady. Afterward, when party zeal changed the name of Tryon county, and it was proposed to alter that of Wake also, the gallantry of the Assembly overruled their feelings of hostility to the governor and his family, and the name was retained. This picture of the palace I made from the original drawings of the plan and elevation, by John Hawks, Esq., the architect. These drawings, with others of minor details, such as sections of the drawing-room, chimney-breasts for the council-chamber and dining-hall, sewers, &c., are in the present possession of a grandson of the architect, the Reverend Francis L. Hawks, D.D., L.L.D., rector of Calvary Church, in the city of New York, to whose courtesy I am indebted for their use. With the drawings is the preliminary contract entered into by the governor and the architect, which bears the private seal of Tryon and the signatures of the parties, from which I made the fac simile printed upon page 361. The contract is dated January 9th, 1767, and specifies that the main building should be of brick, eighty-seven feet front, fiftynine feet deep, and two stories in height, with suitable buildings for offices, &c., and was to be completed by the first day of October, 1770. For his services, Mr. Hawks was to receive an annual salary of "three hundred pounds proclamation money." The view here given was the north front, toward the town. The center edifice was the palace. The building on the right was the secretary's office and the laundry; that upon the left was the kitchen and servant's hall. These were connected with the palace by a curviform colonnade, of five columns each, and covered. Between these buildings, in front of the palace, was a handsome court. The rear of the building was finished in the style of the Mansion-House in London. The interior of the palace was elegantly finished. "Upon entering the street door," says Ebenezer Hazzard, in his journal for 1777, when he visited it, "you enter a hall in which are four niches for statues." The chimney-breasts for the council-chamber, dining-hall, and drawing-room, and the cornices of these rooms, were of white marble. The chimney-breast of the council-chamber was the most elaborate, being ornamented by two Ionic columns below, and four columns, with composite capitals, above, with beautiful entablature, architrave, and friese. Over the inner door of the entrance-hall or ante-chamber was a tabAmong the colonial documents at Raleigh is an account of this chimney-piece. The paper bears the date of December 6, 1769. It is one of several manuscripts deposited there by Dr. Hawks, which he found among his grandfather's papers. His bad Faith. Extortions of Officers. Excessive Taxation. ture in America. Tryon's Proclamation against the Regulators. The pride of the governor and his family was gratified; the people, upon whom the expense was laid, were highly indignant. a April 27. The inhabitants of North Carolina were now thoroughly awakened to the conviction that both the local and the imperial government, were practically hostile to the best interests of the colonists. The taxes hitherto were very burdensome; now the cost of the palace, and an appropriation to defray the expenses of running the dividing line between their province and the hunting-grounds of the Cherokees, made them insupportable.' The rapacity of public officers appeared to increase, and the people saw no prospect of relief. Current history reports that, among the most obnoxious men, who, it was alleged, had grown rich by extortionate fees,' was Edmund Fanning, a lawyer of ability. He was regarded as a coworker with the government; haughty in demeanor, and if common report spoke truth, was immoral. The people, excited by their leaders, detested him, and avoided no occasion to express their displeasure. His first open rupture with the Regulators was in the spring of 1768. Tryon issued a proclamation, half menacing and half persuasive, evidently intended to awe the REGULATION and persuade the other inhabitants to avoid that association. He sent his secretary, David Edwards, to co-operate with Fanning in giving force to the proclamation among the people. They directed the sheriff to appoint a meeting of the vestry-men of the parishes and the leading Regulators, to consult upon the public good and settle all differences. Fair promises dispelled the suspicions of the Regulators, and their vigilance slumbered while awaiting the day of meeting. They were b May 20, not yet fully acquainted with the falsity of their governor, or they would never 1768. have heeded the fair words of his proclamation. They were soon assured of the hollowness of his professions; for, while they were preparing, in good faith, to meet government officers in friendly convention, the sheriff, at the instigation of Fanning, proceeded, with thirty horselet, with a Latin inscription, showing that the palace was dedicated to Sir William Draper,* "the Conqueror of Manilla;" and also the following lines, in Latin, which were written by Draper, who was then on a visit to Governor Tryon : "In the reign of a monarch, who goodness disclos'd, A free, happy people, to dread tyrants oppos'd, Have to virtue and merit erected this dome ; May the owner and household make this their loved home Where religion, the arts, and the laws may invite Future ages to live in sweet peace and delight." The above translation was made by Judge Martin, the historian of North Carolina, who visited the edifice in 1783, in company with the unfortunate Don Francisco de Miranda. That gentleman assured Martin that the structure had no equal in South America.† The palace was destroyed by fire about fifty years ago, and the two smaller buildings, only, remain. The appropriations made by the province on account of the French and Indian war had founded a heavy public debt. These, with the palace debt and the appropriation for the boundary commission, together with the unredeemed bills and treasury-notes, amounted to almost half a million of dollars. This burden upon the common industry became greater in consequence of the depreciation of the paper money of the colony in the hands of the people, at least fifty per cent. at the period in question. To sink this public debt, a poll tax of about a dollar and a half was levied upon every male, white and black, between the ages of sixteen and sixty years. This bore heavily upon the poor, and awakened universal discontent. The running of the western boundary line was an unnecessary measure, and the people were convinced that Tryon projected it for the purpose of gratifying his love of personal display. Commissioners were appointed, and at a time of profound peace with the Indians on the frontier, Tryon marched at the head of a military force, "ostensibly to protect the surveyors." He made such a display of himself before the grave sachems and warriors of the Cherokees, that they gave him the just, though unenviable title of “The great wolf of North Carolina !" The legal fee for drawing a deed was one dollar. Many lawyers charged five dollars. This is a single example of their extortion. Thomas Frohock, who held the office of clerk of the Superior Court in Salisbury, was another extortioner, who was detested by the people. He frequently charged fifteen dollars for a marriage license. When we consider the relative value of money at that time, it was equal to forty or fifty dollars at the present day. Many inhabitants along the Yadkin dispensed with the license, took each other "for better, or for worse," unofficially, and considered themselves as married, without further ceremony. * Sir William was an excessively vain man. Upon a cenotaph, at his seat at Clifton Down, near Bristol, England, he had this inscription placed: "Here lies the mother of Sir William Draper." ↑ History of North Carolina, ii., 226. Arrest of Regulators. Hillsborough menaced. Forbearance of the People. Legal Trials men, to arrest Herman Husband and William Hunter, on a charge of riotous conduct. These, the most prominent men among the Regulators, were seized and cast into Hillsbor a May 1, 1768. ough jail. The whole country was aroused by this treachery, and a large body of the people, led by Ninian Bell Hamilton, a brave old Scotchman of three-scoreand-ten years, marched toward Hillsborough to rescue the prisoners. Fanning and Edwards, apprised of the approach of Hamilton, were alarmed, and released the prisoners just as the people reached the banks of the Eno, opposite Hillsborough. Fanning, with a bottle of rum in one hand, and a bottle of wine in the other, went down to the brink of the stream, urged Hamilton not to march into the town, and asked him to send a horse over that he might cross, give the people refreshments, and have a friendly talk. Hamilton was not to be cajoled by the wolf in sheep's clothing. Ye're nane too gude to wade, and wade ye shall, if ye come over!" shouted Hamilton. Fanning did wade the stream, but his words and his liquor were alike rejected.' Edwards then rode over, and solemnly assured the people that if they would quietly disperse, all their grievances should be redressed. The confiding people cried out," Agreed! agreed!" and, marching back toward Maddock's Mills, they held a meeting at George Sally's the next day,b to consult upon the public good. They drew up a petition, and sent Rednap Howell and James Hunter to lay it before the governor, at Brunswick. It was most respectful, yet Tryon, in imitation of his royal master, haughtily spurned it. He commanded the deputies to return to their houses, warn their associates to desist from holding meetings, disband the association, and be content to pay the taxes! He then graciously promised them to visit Hillsborough within a month, and listen to the complaints of the people. › May 21, 1768. Tryon and some of his council met at Hillsborough early in July. He issued a proclamation, which, for a moment, deceived the people into a belief that justice was about to bear rule, and that the infamous system of extortion was to be repressed. They were again deceived. Instead of mediator, the governor appeared as a judge; instead of defending the oppressed, he encouraged the oppressors. He went into Mecklenburg, raised a large body of troops, and marched from Salisbury to Hillsborough with the parade of a conqueror. But this display did not frighten the people. He sent the sheriff to collect the taxes; that officer was driven back to Hillsborough by the excited populace. The governor was execrated for his false and temporizing conduct, and a general rising of the Regulators was apprehended. From the eleventh of August until the twenty-second of September, when Husband and others would be tried before the Superior Court, the militia were held in readiness to oppose any insurgents, and Tryon remained until the trials were over. On the opening of the court, three thousand people from the surrounding country encamped within half a mile of the town, but, true to a promise they had made not to obstruct the course of justice, they were quiet. Husband was acquitted; Hunter and two others were heavily fined and imprisoned; while Fanning, who was tried under seven indictments for extortion, and was found guilty, was fined one penny on each !3 The judges upon the bench, on this occasion, were Martin Howard, chief justice, and Maurice Moore and Richard Henderson, Maurice Moore associates. The governor, perceiving the indignation of the populace at this mockery of justice, speedily issued a proclamation of a general pardon to all the Regulators except thirteen whom he consid 1 Dr. Caruthers, in his Life of Caldwell, has preserved the two following verses of a doggerel poem of eight stanzas, composed on the occasion: "At length their head man they sent out To save their town from fire: To see Ned Fanning wade Eno, Brave boys, you'd all admire. With hat in hand, at our command, The governor had demanded that twelve wealthy men should meet him at Salisbury, on the twentyfifth of August, and execute a bond, in the penalty of $5000, as security that the Regulators should keep the peace during the trials. This request was refused, but a promise to abstain from violence was made and faithfully kept. Statement of Herman Husband. Record of the Superior Court at Hillsborough. Tryon's Return to Newbern. Prevalence of Quiet. New Outbreaks. Riots at Hillsborough. ered as the principal leaders. By this act of apparent clemency he hoped to pacify the disturbed public mind. Satisfying himself that quiet would now prevail, he returned to his palace at Newbern, neither a wiser nor a better man. For almost two years comparative quiet prevailed; not the quiet of abject submission on the part of the people, but the quiet of inactive anarchy. The sheriffs dared not enforce their claims, and the evident impuissance of government made the Regulators bold. Finally, many unprincipled men, who espoused their cause in order to benefit by change, committed acts of violence which all good patriots deplored. The records of the Superior Court at Hillsborough show evidence of a lawlessness, in 1770, quite incompatible with order and justice; and yet, from the character of some of the men engaged in breaking up the court at the September term of that year, it must be inferred that sufficient cause existed to warrant, in a great degree, their rebellious proceedings. An excited populace gathered there at the opening of the court, and committed acts which Husband and Howell, and their compatriots, would doubtless have prevented, if in their power. But reason and prudence are alike strangers to a mob. Not content with impeding the course of justice by driving the judge from the bench and the advocates from the forum, the Regulators severely beat a lawyer in the street, named John Williams, and dragged Fanning out of the court-house by his heels, beat him with rods, and kept him in confinement dur 2 ལ༩༢༠ Abrahane Smith FANNING'S AUTOGRAPH. 1 The names of these "outlaws" were James Hunter, Ninian Bell Hamilton, Peter Craven, Isaack Jackson, Herman Husband, Matthew Hamilton, William Payne, Malichi Tyke, William Moffat, Christopher Nation, Solomon Goff, and John O'Neil. These were some of the "Sons of Liberty" of western North Carolina. While in Hillsborough, in January, 1849, I was permitted by the Clerk of the Superior Court, to make the following extracts from the old records: "Monday, September 24th, 1770. Several persons styling themselves Regulators, assembled together in the court-yard, under the conduct of Herman Husband, James Hunter, Rednap Howell, William Butler, Samuel Divinny, and many others, insulted some of the gentlemen of the bar, and in a riotous manner went into the court-house and forcibly carried out some of the attorneys, and in a cruel manner beat them. They then insisted that the judge (Richard Henderson being the only one on the bench) should proceed to the trial of their leaders, who had been indicted at a former court. and that the jury should be taken out of their party. Therefore, the judge finding it impossible to proceed with honor to himself, and justice to his country, adjourned the court till to-morrow at ten o'clock, and took advantage of the night, and made his escape." The court, of course, did not convene on the next day, and instead of a record of judicial proceedings, I found the following entry: "March term, 1771. The persons styling themselves Regulators, under the conduct of Herman Husband, James Hunter, Rednap Howell, William Butler, and Samuel Divinny, still continuing their riotous meetings, and severely threatening the judges, lawyers, and other officers of the court, prevented any of the judges or lawyers attending. Therefore, the court continues adjourned until the next September term." These entries are in the handwriting of Fanning. * Rednap Howell was from New Jersey, and was a brother of Richard Howell a patriot of the Revolution, and governor of that state. Like his brother (who wrote the ode of welcome to Washington printed on page 38), he was endowed with poetic genius, and composed about forty songs during the Regulator movements. He taught school somewhere on the Deep River, and was a man of quite extensive influence. Like Freneau, at a later day, he gave obnoxious officials many severe thrusts. He thus hits Frohock and Fanning: In 1771, a pamphlet was published in Boston, entitled "A Fan for Fanning, and a Touch for Tryon; containing an Impartia! Account of the Rise and Progress of the so-much-talked-of Regulators in North Carolina. By Regulus." In this pamphlet, Tryon and Fanning were sufficiently scorched to need a "fan." Outrages upon Fanning. Sketch of his Public Life. Mock Court and Trials. Yorke. ing the night. On the following morning, when they discovered that the judge had escaped, they beat Fanning again, demolished his costly furniture, and pulled down his house. They intended to burn it, but the wind was high, and they apprehended the destruction of other property. These proceedings were highly disgraceful, and the harsh treatment of Fanning was condemned by all right-minded men. When this violence was completed, they repaired to the court-house, and appointed a schoolmaster of Randolph county, named Yorke, clerk; chose one of their number for tanning pay, loses Nothing YORKE'S AUTOGRAPH. Lost but judge; took up the several cases as they appeared upon the docket, and adjudicated them, making Fanning plead law; and then decided several suits. As the whole proceedings were intended as a farce, their decisions were perfectly ridiculous, while some of the "remarks" by Yorke were vulgar and profane.' 1 Fanning's house was upon the site of the present Masonic Hall, a handsome brick building within a grove on King Street.. On the opposite side of the street is his office, too much modernized for a drawing of it to possess any interest. He was EDMUND FANNING was a native of Long Island, New York, son of Colonel Phineas Fanning. educated at Yale College, and graduated with honor in 1757. He soon afterward went to North Carolina, and began the profession of a lawyer at Hillsborough, then called Childsborough. In 1760, the degree of L.L.D. was conferred upon him by his alma mater. In 1763, he was appointed colonel of Orange county, and in 1765 was made clerk of the Superior Court at Hillsborough. He also represented Orange county in the Colonial Legislature. In common with other lawyers, he appears to have exacted exorbitant fees for legal services, and consequently incurred the dislike of the people, which was finally manifested by acts of violence. He accompanied Governor Tryon to New York, in 1771, as his secretary. Governor Martin asked the Legislature to indemnify Colonel Fanning for his losses; the representatives of the people rebuked the governor for presenting such a petition. In 1776, General Howe gave Fanning the commission of colonel, and he raised and commanded a corps called the King's American Regiment of Foot. He was afterward appointed to the lucrative office of surveyor general, which he retained until his flight, with other Loyalists, to Nova Scotia, in 1783. In 1786 he was made lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, and in 1794 he was appointed governor of Prince Edward's Island. He held the latter office about nineteen years, a part of which time he was also a brigadier in the British army, having received his commission in 1808. He married in Nova Scotia, where some of his family yet reside. General Fanning died in London, in 1818, at the age of about eighty-one years. His widow and two daughters yet (1852) survive. One daughter, Lady Wood, a widow, resides near London with her mother; the other, wife of Captain Bentwick Cumberland, a nephew of Lord Bentwick, resides at Charlotte's Town, New Brunswick. I am indebted to John Fanning Watson, Esq., the Annalist of Philadelphia and New York, for the portrait here given. EDMUND FANNING. General Fanning's early career, while in North Carolina, seems not to have given promise of that life of usefulness which he exhibited after leaving Republican America. It has been recorded, it is true, by partisan pens, yet it is said that he often expressed regrets for his indiscreet course at Hillsborough. His after life bore no reproaches, and the Gentlemen's Magazine (1818), when noting his death, remarked, "The world contained no better man in all the relations of life." 2 The fac similes here given of the writing of Fanning and Yorke are copies which I made from the original in the old record book. The first shows the names of parties to the suit entered by Fanning on the record. The mock court, of course, decided in favor of the defendant, Smith, and opposite these names and the record of the verdict, Yorke wrote, with a wretched pen, the sentence here engraved : Fanning pays cost, but loses nothing." He being clerk of the court, and the lawyer, the costs were payable to himself, and so he lost nothing. Yorke was a man of great personal courage, and when, a few years later, the war of the Revolution was progressing, he became the terror of the Loyalists in that region. An old man on the banks of the Allamance, who knew him well, related to me an instance of his daring. On one occasion, while Cornwallis was marching victoriously through that section, Yorke, while riding on horseback in the neighborhood of the Deep River, was nearly surrounded by a band of Tories. He spurred his horse toward |