Russellborough and the Stamp Act Standoff

Near here stood Russellborough, the most politically charged house in colonial North Carolina. Built around seventeen fifty-one by a sea captain, it became home to two royal governors in succession. Governor Arthur Dobbs lived here until his death in seventeen sixty-five, calling it Castle Dobbs after his Irish ancestral home.

His successor, William Tryon, inherited both the house and a colony in open revolt. In February of seventeen sixty-six, several hundred armed colonists surrounded Russellborough to protest the Stamp Act. Two merchant ships sat idle in the harbor because officials refused to clear their papers without the hated tax stamps.

The crowd forced the customs comptroller to resign on the spot and compelled officials to release the vessels. North Carolina's resistance at Russellborough came months after the first Boston protests but was among the boldest armed defiance of the Stamp Act, and it helped push Parliament toward repeal. The house later burned during the Revolution, leaving only the ghost of its defiance.