Truman Family Blog: Tryon Palace

For Hannah's birthday, the family went to Tryon Palace, home of North Carolina's governor before the Revolutionary war. Originally it stood by itself overlooking a big river full of merchant ships. The river is still there, but the palace now is nestled in the middle of a city- a nice one with historical houses and well kept gardens, but still a city, and it overlooks a river of sailboats with bridges for the highway. Even though its surroundings have changed, when you enter the palace gates it's like being transported back to colonial times. The volunteers are dressed like they would have been when the governor ruled and they cook and garden there. The historical committee has tried to make the house look just as it would have with as much accuracy and attention to detail as possible. We had a great time.

Everyone loved riding the big golf cart to get from the parking lot to the visitor's center and then to the palace.

The visitor's center was big and new.

The palace itself was a mansion- with solid brick walls two feet thick! There was also a detached kitchen/servants' quarters and a ten-horse stable. Unfortunately, you were not allowed to take pictures inside the building but it was amazing. It wasn't cluttered with stuff and there were not that many rooms but it was still impressive with its sheer size and its high ceilings. There was a huge wooden staircase of which each step was not connected to the wall, it was just held in place by the weight of the steps above and below it. Above the staircase was the first glass dome skylight ever built in America. The girls were able to play the harpsichord in the palace's ballroom. It sounded like a high pitched guitar.

The buildings and walls were built with remarkable details, like this rounded watchtower.

The gardens were amazing. There was the large kitchen garden, with every sort of vegetable that originally would have been planted, like melons, squashes, rhubarb, onions, collard greens, tomatoes, herbs, and many more. Plus, around the gardens were apple trees trained along a split rail fence (shown above), pear trees trained against the garden walls, grape vines, citrus trees, and nut trees. As many different types of plants were squeezed as compactly as possible and as efficiently as possible to produce as much food as possible. The volunteers actually cook in the kitchen most days using food from the garden.

The edible gardens were not the only gardens. This is the marigold garden, and there were also tons of other flower gardens and statue gardens.

In the background is the kitchen and the round tower in the foreground is the pigeon house with lots of live pigeons.

The neighborhood surrounding the palace is full of historic houses. Everything is very well kept and you can even go inside a few of the them, some of which were the property of important people during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

Inside the visitor's center was a big area just for kids, although many adults went through and had fun too. First you traveled back through time to 1834 and then went into a little town with a merchant ship, a printer's shop, a general store, a kitchen, a quilting bee, and a turpentine-making camp. Each section was cleverly set up with buttons you could push and activities to do.
On board the ship, each member of our group manned a different station. Emily was the lookout, looking through the telescope for storms, Jessica controlled the sails, moving them port or starboard according to wind direction, Braden and Katie killed rats, Mom was the ship's captain and plotted the route, and Hannah steered the big wooden steering wheel.
The store and kitchen were similar, with a person on a screen telling you to find different objects to either put in a shopping basket or a kitchen table. But, instead of taking the actual item displayed on the shelves or in crates, you pushed the button besides the object, and its picture appeared on the screen. Everywhere and next to everything were buttons. The kids loved it.
The turpentine camp was a little more hands on but still contained lots of buttons. To make turpentine, you take the sap out of pine trees, collect it in barrels, boil it, and drain out the water while putting the turpentine in barrels.

Hannah pushes a button to add fuel to the fire: it needs a lot of wood to make it boil but too much and it catches fire!

Katie uses an 'ax' to chop the bark off a pine tree, filling the barrel with sap, which she'll roll to a weigh station to be emptied.

Braden is a very quiet guy- he prefers signing to talking. However, he discovered his inner loudness when he became the turpentine camp's 'singer'. Singing to keep the camp workers on schedule, he yelled and yelled.

We explored the gardens, including this pathway through trees formed into an arch.

The governor who lived in the palace would decide whether he would have a good day or a bad day by looking out his window. If the cannon was aimed away from the palace and towards the river, it was a good day. If the cannon aimed towards the palace, it was a bad day.