Dunmore’s Flight and the Seizure of the Governor’s Palace

A few months earlier, the idea of Dunmore fleeing the Palace would have been inconceivable. In December, the local gentry had thrown a ball in honor of the birth of the governor’s daughter, Virginia. But Dunmore’s relationship with colonial leaders deteriorated rapidly. Following an order from London, Dunmore seized the colony’s gunpowder supply from the Williamsburg Magazine in April. That month, news also arrived of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.¹

Revolutionary sentiment simmered through April and May. Rumors would spread, angry crowds would gather, and local leaders would calm them. A group of volunteers kept watch over the Palace.² When the Hanover County militia led by Patrick Henry threatened to march on Williamsburg in early May, Dunmore turned the Palace into a fortress. He called in soldiers and sailors, who rolled cannons in. One Loyalist wrote that Dunmore had “fortified his House, with Swivel guns at the Windows.”³ An early historian claimed that “Parties of negroes mounted guard every night” at the Palace.⁴

Dunmore had lost the confidence of the colony’s leading men and many of its white inhabitants. But he continued to believe that he could gather support “among the Indians, negroes, and other persons.”⁵ According to the mayor of Williamsburg, Dunmore had boasted that he could count on “all the Slaves on the side of Government.”⁶ If attacked, the Palace had “two hundred muskets loaded” to defend itself. He threatened to “declare Freedom to the Slaves, and reduce the City of Williamsburg to Ashes.”⁷

Virginia avoided a bloody confrontation. Henry’s militia dispersed after a wealthy member of the Council agreed to pay for the gunpowder that Dunmore had seized.⁸ But the governor’s position remained weak during this temporary truce. Dunmore later recalled that “My house was kept in continual allarm, and threatned every night with an assault.”⁹ Dunmore sent his family to a nearby warship. But the governor stayed behind for several weeks.

On the rainy afternoon of May 26, the sound of shattering glass filled the Governor’s Palace. Had the shooting started? As they dodged the first violent eruptions of glass, those inside the building must have wondered if they were suddenly in a warzone. Luckily for them, it was only a hailstorm. Hail of a “prodigious size” had broken hundreds of the Palace’s windows. The Palace remained secure, if a bit draftier than before.

Growing instability presented opportunities for enslaved Virginians. Resistance among enslaved people spiked in 1775.¹⁰ Diarist Philip Fithian recorded that “Slaves are running off daily.”¹¹ Prior to Dunmore’s departure, some enslaved people even sought refuge at the Governor’s Palace. Dunmore boasted that when he was threatened by Patrick Henry and the militia, “some Slaves had offered him their Service.”¹²

Later, one enslaver wrote an advertisement in the Virginia Gazette about an unnamed fifteen-year-old girl who ran away from slavery for the protection of Dunmore in the Governor’s Palace.¹³ For these enslaved people, Dunmore’s rumored plans to arm enslaved people against white colonists made the Palace a potential site of emancipation.

Cases like these reinforced a growing fear among many white colonists that British leaders were inciting conspiracies and rebellions among enslaved people.¹⁴ One writer in the Virginia Gazette anticipated that Dunmore would soon “take the field as generalissimo at the head of the Africans.” Dunmore would also invert the social order, this writer predicted, by inviting enslaved Virginians to become guests at the Palace: “The Black Ladies, it is supposed, will be jollily entertained at the [palace].”¹⁵

Dunmore eventually decided not to make a stand at the Palace. This was a prudent strategic decision. Unlike many other colonial capitals, Williamsburg was landlocked. Britain’s strength came from its navy, and an inland city could not be subdued as easily as a city vulnerable to the guns of warships. In a letter to London, Dunmore explained that Palace reinforcements marched several miles overland to reach the city, which exposed them to the “mercy of the People.”¹⁶ One Loyalist commented that Williamsburg was unsuitable as a capital since the government ought to be located “some place where a ship can go. What can a governor do without a little force?”¹⁷

In the early hours of June 8, Dunmore and his family (who had briefly returned) left the Palace for the warship HMS Fowey in the York River. Governor Dunmore spent the next few months fighting to reestablish his authority from aboard the Fowey. But the colonists continued to defy him. On one occasion, when his ship briefly landed for repairs near his hunting lodge, a party of seventy militiamen chased him off and ruined his dinner.¹⁸

When Dunmore departed the Palace in the middle of the night, by his own estimate, he left behind about £35,000 worth of property. This included land, animals, furnishings, and dozens of enslaved people and servants who lived on the Palace grounds.¹⁹

As royal authority dissolved over the course of 1775, the colonists began to slowly take possession of Dunmore’s home and property. On June 24, 1775, a group of young colonists broke into the Palace. The building’s entryway had long displayed hundreds of swords and guns. The burglars, who included college student and future president James Monroe, removed more than two hundred guns and three hundred swords.²⁰

News traveled quickly. By the next day, Dunmore had already heard about the break-in. He complained to London that the colonists “violently forced” their way into his home, “bursting open a Window.” He noted that they took the arms and some of “my own Property; what other depredation has been Committed I am not yet able to learn.”²¹

A couple of weeks later, Dunmore complained that the people had “taken possession of the Park,” a piece of land that was part of the Governor’s Palace. They were using the land “for their Cavalry, wantonly Cutting and maiming my Cattle.” They had also busted into the building again. They “broke open every lock of the doors of all the rooms, Cabinets and private places” in the house in search of guns. They took “Arms of different Sorts, a large collection and valuable, my own property.”²²

Dunmore eventually delivered on his threats. In November, he issued a proclamation offering freedom to enslaved people who joined the British cause. It was an invitation that led many enslaved people to leave their homes under cover of darkness, much as Dunmore had done under very different circumstances. About a year after leaving the Palace, Dunmore returned to Britain. He remained, for years, officially Virginia’s governor in absentia.

As it became evident that Dunmore would not return, revolutionary leaders took control of the Palace. About a year after he left, they auctioned off Dunmore’s personal possessions, including several enslaved people.²³ The Palace needed to be emptied to make way for its next occupant.

Virginians had elected Patrick Henry as their governor. As he took residence in the Palace, Henry helped to transform it from a royal space to a revolutionary one. He was an appropriate inheritor of the building. After all, he had done more than anyone else to scare away the previous occupant.