Lt. Gen. William Tryon, Colonial Governor

William Tryon was a British soldier and colonial administrator who served as governor of the Province of North Carolina (1765–1771) and the Province of New York (1771–1780).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tryon

http://www.fultoncountyliving.com/Governor_Tryon.html

William Tryon was born on June 8, 1729, at his family's seat, Norbury Park, in Surrey, England. His ancestry was distinguished. Although members of the Tryon family had lived in England since the Norman invasion, he was quite likely a descendant of Peter Tryon (or Trieon), a wealthy Flemish refugee who in 1561 had fled the persecution of the duke of Alba with a fortune of £60,000 sterling. In any case, throughout his life William Tryon used as his own the arms and crest that had been granted to Peter Tryon in 1610. The first documented ancestor of William Tryon was Abraham Tryon, who appears in the historical record in 1620 as purchaser of Bulwick Hall, Northampton. In subsequent years Abraham Tryon would be the first of many in his family to maintain a close association with the Church of Bulwick, where various records of the Tryon family are found. The church's annals for October 1679, for instance, note the birth and baptism of Charles Tryon, "Sonne and Heir to James Tryon Esq." This Charles Tryon, the grandfather of William Tryon, later inherited a new Bulwick Hall that had been constructed in 1679, married Jane Savile, and died prematurely at the age of twenty-seven in November 1705. 3

Before Charles Tryon's death, he and Jane Savile Tryon produced a family heir, Charles, in September 1702. This Charles Tryon, the father of William Tryon, married Lady Mary Shirley on July 3, 1711, in the Bishop of London's Chapel at Fulham. William Tryon's mother, Lady Mary Tryon, was the daughter of Robert Shirley, Earl Ferrers. Through her, William Tryon was descended from Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, a sometime favorite of Elizabeth I, and the royal house of Plantagenet. He was related as well to other prominent Tryons in various parts of England, including Moses Tryon, son of the Huguenot Peter Tryon, a high sheriff of County Harrington in 1624, and William and Thomas Tryon, both West India merchantmen who died in the 1740s. His family records clearly reveal that William Tryon was well born and in an excellent position to use highly placed relatives for advancement. Indeed, during his tenure as a servant of the Crown, he would capitalize upon these advantages to advance professionally and to receive other kinds of highly useful preferment. 4 Charles Tryon, father of William Tryon, artist unknown. This portrait hangs in the master bedroom of Tryon Palace, New Bern. Charles Tryon was descended from family members dating back to 1066. His wife, William Tryon's mother, was Lady Mary Shirley, daughter of Robert Shirley, Earl Ferrers. (Courtesy of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History)

William Tryon and the Course of Empire: A Life in British Imperial Service by Paul David Nelson (University of North Carolina Press 1990)