The Graffenrieds, a well-to-do patrician family, had…

The Graffenrieds, a well-to-do patrician family, had originally established themselves in the neighborhood of Bern at the time of the founding of the city on the Aar river in 1191 by Berchtold V, Duke of Zaringen.

Christoph von Graffenried was born November 15, 1661 at the family home, Schloss Worb, in Worb, in the German-speaking part of the Canton of Bern in Switzerland, the eldest son of Anton von Graffenried (1639–1730) and Katarina Jenner (?-1669).

Graffenried on April 25th, 1684, had married Regina Tscharner (1665–1731), who also comes from an accomplished and respected family, her father, Beat Lewis Tscharner, having been a member of the Assembly and her grandfather, Samuel Tscharner, having been Governor and later Mayor of Chillon.

Regina and Christoph have four sons and seven daughters.

He had in 1702 acquired the position as bailiff of Yverdon.

Graffenried had met Franz Ludwig Michel, who had discovered silver mines in Virginia and owns land in the New World.

Telling Graffenried what glorious places North Carolina and Virginia are, he has advised him to move to North Carolina.

With the idea of paying off his debts and making money on the cheap land in North Carolina, Graffenried had left his debts to his father and secretly departed for London so that he could see this New World.

When in London, Graffenried had met with John Lawson, the Surveyor General of North Carolina, who is publishing a book entitled A Voyage to Carolina.

Lawson had promised to show Graffenried and his settlers a perfect place to establish a community.

Graffenried had in 1709 met with the Lords Proprietors of Carolina, who have granted to him ten thousand acres (forty square kilometers ) on the Neuse and Cape Fear Rivers.

They also have given him the title Baron of Bernberg, after the settlement he is supposed to found.

Consequently, Graffenried had gathered a group of Germans from the Palatine region and Swiss immigrants who have faced hardships in their own countries and want to start over in North Carolina.

He sails in 1710 to North Carolina.

On the sea, the settlers had been attacked by French privateers, who had stripped them of everything they brought.

Once in the New World, the settlers had sold everything that remained, except the clothes on their backs.

John Lawson had taken them to a site at the junction of the Trent and Neuse Rivers, which they name New Bern.

The first season, the settler's crops do not do well.

Graffenried returns to Europe to get supplies and additional settlers.

He returns to the colony unscathed.

Graffenried had ordered that the layout of the town was made into the shape of a cross, although the town is not in the shape today due to growth of the town and towns surrounding it.

In addition to a lack of food and supplies, there is great tension between the settlers and the Tuscarora of the Neuse River region.

Unknown to the settlers, their new settlement is on the site of an old Tuscarora village.