Russelborough was erected by Captain John Russell, commander of His Britannic Majesty's sloop of war Scorpion, who gave his name to this residence and its adjacent tract of fifty-five acres near the town of Brunswick. It was subsequently owned and occupied by the British Governor and Commander in Chief Arthur Dobbs, and later conveyed to Governor William Tryon. On February 10, 1766, this building, known as Tryon's Palace, was surrounded by one hundred and fifty armed men of the Cape Fear led by George Moore of Orton and Cornelius Harnett, who for the first time on this continent resisted the authority of their sovereign lord the King by demanding from Governor Tryon the person of Captain Lobb of H.M.S. Viper and the surrender of the odious emblems of the British Parliament's Stamp Act committed to his care and brought to Brunswick by Captain Phipps in H.M.S. Diligence. Subsequently, on February 21, 1766, at 10 A.M., a body of five hundred Cape Fear men in arms under Cornelius Harnett and Colonel James Moore surrounded the house and demanded the surrender of H.M. Comptroller Mr. Pennington, requiring of him an oath that he would never issue any stamped paper in this province of North Carolina.