William Tryon (8 June 1729 – 27 January 1788) was the Governor of North Carolina from 1765 to 1771 (succeeding Arthur Dobbs and preceding James Hasell) and Governor of New York from 1771 to 1780 (succeeding Cadwallader Colden and preceding James Robertson).
Biography[]
William Tryon was born on 8 June 1729 in Norbury Park, Surrey, England, and he entered the British Army in 1751 as a Lieutenant in the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards. In 1758, Tryon was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel during the Seven Years' War, taking part in a raid on the port of Cherbourg in France before being wounded at the Battle of Saint Cast on 11 September 1758. In 1765, family connections allowed him to become the Governor of North Carolina in the Thirteen Colonies, and he worked to expand the Church of England in the colony. Tryon angered the people by his support of the Stamp Act (until it was repealed), his request to levy taxes to build a lavish mansion for himself, and his suppression of a rebellion by regulators at the Battle of Alamance in the War of the Regulation, raising taxes to fight against the rebels. Tryon would be sent to New York in 1771, where he was just as hated by the Sons of Liberty and the colonists. In the summer of 1776, Tryon and Mayor of New York City David Matthews plotted to assassinate George Washington during the American Revolutionary War, but Thomas Hickey was caught in the attempt to kill Washington and was hanged on 28 June 1776 in New York City. Tryon would later rise to the rank of Major-General in the armies of the provinces, leading the British victory at the Battle of Ridgefield and taking command of the British forces on Long Island in May 1778. In July 1779, he began Tryon's Raid along the Connecticut coast in order to draw away Continental Army troops from the Hudson Valley, and both the American and British leaders condemned him. Henry Clinton refused to give him further commands, and in September 1780 he returned to London. Tryon died in Twickenham, Middlesex in 1788.