Christoph von Graffenried

Christoph von Graffenried (15 November 1661 – 1743) was a Swiss nobleman who led a group of Swiss and Palatine Germans to North Carolina in British North America in 1705. He later authored Relation of My American Project, an account of the establishment of New Bern.

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

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

On April 25, 1684, Graffenried married Regina Tscharner (1665–1731). Regina also came 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 had four sons and seven daughters. In 1702, he acquired the position as bailiff of Yverdon.

Graffenried met Franz Ludwig Michel, who had discovered silver mines in Virginia and owned land in the New World. He told Graffenried what glorious places North Carolina and Virginia were, and he advised him to move to North Carolina. With the idea of paying off his debts and making money on the cheap land of North Carolina, Graffenried left his debts to his father and secretly departed for London to make arrangements to move to the New World.

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