New Bern, North Carolina: A River Plus a Swiss City
New Bern, North Carolina, wasn’t simply a new Bern: its Swiss founder wrote that he joined the name of the river, which he spelled Neuws, to the name of Bern. That founder was Baron Christoph von Graffenried, and in his words, “so the city was christened Newbern.”
The founder’s own sentence
Graffenried left accounts of his colony in French and German, and in 1920 the North Carolina Historical Commission published them, with English translations, in a volume edited by Vincent H. Todd. The naming takes one sentence in the French version: “Il s’agissoit de doner un nom a la ville ce que nous fumes en grande Solennite, et nous joignimes au nom de Neuws celuy de Berne, ainsi la ville fust baptisee Neuberne.”
Todd’s translation: “It was a question of giving a name to the city, which we did in great solemnity; and we joined to the name of Neuws that of Berne, and so the city was christened Newbern.” Neuws is Graffenried’s spelling of the Neuse: Todd’s full English version of the French account renders that same sentence as “we joined to Neuse that of Bern.” His German papers, printed in the same book, pair “Neuws und Trent,” the two rivers on either side of the point where New Bern was built.
Henry Gannett’s federal list of place-name origins, published in 1905, keeps it simple. It lists Newbern as “named from the town of Bern in Switzerland.” That’s true as far as it goes. But if you take the founder at his word, the first half of the name came from the river the town sits on.
A tongue of land called Chattoka
The place had a name before the town did. Graffenried’s account says the surveyor general settled the colonists “on a point of land between the Neuse and the Trent River. This place called Chattoka is where the city of New Bern was afterwards founded.” A 1910 New Bern booklet spells it Chattawka and says the first settlers to arrive were Germans from the Palatinate, who sailed from England in January 1710 and lost half their number on a 13-week voyage. Graffenried joined them in September 1710 “with his Bernese Swiss.”
Christened “in great solemnity”
Todd read something into that phrase about solemnity. Graffenried used the same word for a “solemn assembly” held on another occasion and for an alliance made “solemnly” with a neighboring Native leader named Taylor, so Todd argued the naming was likely done at a kind of town meeting. He pointed out that most of the Swiss settlers came from Bern, where popular assemblies had been held as late as 1653, and said “it is not surprising to see indications of such an assembly in New Bern, when the town was to be named.” That’s Todd’s reading of one word, not a record of the meeting, so you can take it as an educated guess.
Neuberne, New Berne, Newbern, New Bern
The spelling wandered for two centuries. Graffenried wrote Neuberne, the 1910 booklet uses New Berne, and Gannett’s 1905 book lists Newbern. GNIS, the U.S. Geological Survey’s official list of names, now has New Bern as the official spelling, backed by a decision of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names dated 1915.
The tie to the old city stuck, though. The 1910 booklet says that in 1891, when Bern celebrated its 700th anniversary, New Bern sent its mayor. Three years later New Bern’s city council adopted Bern’s coat of arms and colors, and in 1896 Bern sent over its banner as a gift.
Sources & further reading
- Christoph von Graffenried’s Account of the Founding of New Bern, edited by Vincent H. Todd (1920). The French sentence on the naming, Todd’s translation, and his argument about a popular assembly (pp. 70–71, Todd’s introduction and note 21); the colonists placed at Chattoka between the Neuse and the Trent (p. 226); the full translation, “we joined to Neuse that of Bern” (p. 378).
- Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905). Newbern, “named from the town of Bern in Switzerland” (p. 222).
- Colonial New Bern; New Bern of Today (1910). A promotional booklet from New Bern. The Palatines’ 1710 voyage, “Chattawka,” Graffenried’s arrival in September 1710 “with his Bernese Swiss,” the 1891 anniversary, Bern’s arms and colors, and the 1896 banner.
- GNIS feature 1013911 (U.S. Geological Survey). The official name New Bern, with a Board on Geographic Names decision dated January 6, 1915.
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