North Carolina's first permanent colonial capitol, rebuilt in 1959 — and site of a 2017 viral video showing a translucent figure walking past a ground-floor doorway
529 South Front Street, New Bern, NC 28562
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Paid admission; multiple tour tiers available. See tryonpalace.org for current pricing. Group reservations available.
Access
Wheelchair OK
16-acre site with gardens and reconstructed 18th-century buildings; some uneven historic paths
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1770 · First permanent colonial capitol of North Carolina · Residence of royal governors 1770-1775 · Site of War of Regulation antecedent conflict · Reconstructed 1952-1959 from original architectural plans · National Historic Landmark
John Hawks, the only trained professional architect then practicing in colonial North Carolina, designed Tryon Palace for Governor William Tryon. Construction finished in 1770, and the Georgian complex served as the official residence and offices for British governors until the Revolution drove the last royal governor from the colony in 1775.
After independence, four state governors — Richard Caswell, Abner Nash, Alexander Martin, and Richard Dobbs Spaight — used the palace as the state house before the capital moved to Raleigh in 1792. The building's funding had been controversial from the start: Tryon's taxation to pay for construction helped spark the War of Regulation, a pre-Revolutionary uprising by backcountry settlers, and Tryon himself departed for New York in 1771 after living in the palace barely over a year.
In 1798, a fire beginning in the cellar destroyed the main palace. Only the Kitchen and Stable Offices initially survived; the Kitchen Office was later demolished, leaving the Stable Office as the sole original structure. A major fundraising and reconstruction effort, relying on Hawks's original architectural drawings, rebuilt the palace between 1952 and 1959. It opened to the public on April 8, 1959, and now operates as a living-history museum with 16 acres of recreated 18th-century gardens.
Sources
On a Sunday in July 2017, Danielle Hyde, 21, and Savanna Brown, 23, were touring Tryon Palace when Hyde filmed the interior with her phone. Hyde said she did not notice anything unusual at the time; it was her cousin, reviewing the footage remotely, who pointed out a translucent figure appearing to walk past a doorway in the background.
The video reached at least six UK tabloids, including the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Mirror, and Metro, which ran headlines calling it evidence of a servant who 'burned alive' in the 1798 fire. No historical record of a specific servant death in that fire has been publicly documented by the palace, and the accounts in British media appear to have elaborated on the footage without a documented source. Social media commenters noted that the figure casts a shadow and raised the possibility it was a staff member in period costume passing through the frame.
Tryon Palace does not operate ghost tours or advertise paranormal programming, but the building is included on some Ghosts of New Bern tour routes as a point of local legend.
Media Appearances
Guided living-history experience through the reconstructed Georgian palace and outbuildings, interpreting the lives of royal governors, revolutionary-era politicians, and the enslaved people who maintained the estate. Staff in period costume inhabit the rooms.
Explore 16 acres of recreated 18th-century formal gardens and historic outbuildings at your own pace. The grounds include the Stable Office, the only surviving original structure from before the 1798 fire.
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