Governor's Palace

The official residence of Virginia's royal governors, completed 1722 and home to seven governors including Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor. Dunmore fled here in June 1775, abandoning the palace and effectively ending royal authority in Virginia. During the Yorktown siege in 1781 it served as a hospital for French and American wounded. The original burned in 1781; the reconstruction (1934) is based on the original floorplan and an architectural drawing by Thomas Jefferson.