Tryon, William, 1729–88, English colonial governor in North America. After a distinguished army career he was appointed (1764) lieutenant governor of North Carolina and succeeded (1765) Arthur Dobbs as governor. Tryon was an able administrator but became unpopular with the colonists because of his rigorous suppression (1771) of the Regulator movement. In 1771 he was appointed governor of New York, and at the outbreak of the American Revolution he was forced to remain on a British ship in the harbor. Tryon returned to power when William Howe took the city (1776), and later (1777, 1779) he led Tory raids in Connecticut.
See M. D. Haywood, Governor William Tryon and the Administration of the Province of North Carolina (1903).
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