The New International Encyclopædia/Graffenried, Christopher

GRAFFENRIED, grä'fen-rēt, Christopher, Baron de (?-1735). A Swiss nobleman, who established a colony of Swiss and Germans in North Carolina. In 1709 the Lords Proprietors of Carolina granted to him ten thousand acres on the Neuse and Cape Fear rivers, and soon afterwards a large number of Palatines and Swiss followed him to the confluence of the Trent and Neuse, where they founded a town which they called New Bern in his honor, Bern, Switzerland, having been his birthplace. While he and Lawson, the surveyor-general of the province, were exploring the Neuse River in 1711 they were captured by the Tuscarora Indians, who had become incensed at the encroachments of the colonists, and Lawson was soon put to death, though Graffenried, after many weeks, was allowed to return on condition that no settlements should be made without the sanction of the native chiefs. Graffenried soon afterwards sold his possessions in North America and returned to Switzerland.