Peter Tyler was a resident of northeastern North Carolina, likely Martin or Pitt County. In 1777 he became a member of the Gourd Patch Conspiracy and may have become a warden authorized to recruit new members, as he approached John Hodge and tried to get him to take an oath of secrecy. In July just before the plot was uncovered, John Lewellen urged Tyler and another member, James Rawlings, to lay in wait for James Mayo, a local captain who had threatened to arrest Lewellen as a loyalist. Once Mayo passed by on the road, Lewellen wanted them to kill him. Rawlings refused, but Tyler followed orders and laid in wait, armed, but Mayo did not appear. Later Tyler appeared on a list of prisoners being held at the Edenton District Court of Oyer and Terminer in connection with the conspiracy trial.