Burgwin-Wright House

Built in 1770 atop the site of Wilmington’s first city jail (circa 1744), the Burgwin-Wright House was constructed as the townhouse of John Burgwin—a prominent merchant, planter, colonial treasurer, and private secretary to North Carolina’s last two royal governors. Designed as both a business headquarters and a place of entertainment, the home reflected Burgwin’s status and Loyalist convictions. After breaking his leg in 1775, he returned to England for medical reasons, though he was widely known for his steadfast Tory beliefs. During his absence, his properties were confiscated, but following the Treaty of Paris in 1783, he received a pardon and later sold the house in 1799 to Joshua Grainger Wright, whose family had rented it during the war. In 1781, when the British occupied Wilmington near the end of the Revolution, Lord Cornwallis occupied the home, gaining it the nickname of “The Cornwallis House.”
By 1930, the historic structure had fallen into serious disrepair and faced demolition when Standard Oil sought the property for a gas station. A determined preservation effort led by the local community and the North Carolina Society of the Colonial Dames of America ultimately saved the house in 1937. Restored in the years that followed, the Burgwin-Wright House opened to the public in 1951 as a museum, preserving one of Wilmington’s oldest surviving landmarks and its deep ties to the Revolutionary era.