General Notes

REFN: Ind20787
[bobbaker.ged]
Mary, b. 1768; m. Metcalf de Graffenriedt
Metcalf de Graffenriedt was probably a grandson of Christopher, Baron de
Graffenriedt, who received from the Lord Proprietors of North Carolina,
in 1709, a grant of 10,000 acres of land on the Neuse and Cape Fear
rivers, at the rate of œ10 sterling for every thousand acres, and five
shillings quit-rent. A great number of Palatines and fifteen hundred
Swiss followed the Baron and settled at the confluence of the Trent and
the Neuse. The town was called New Berne, after Berne, in Switzerland,
the birthplace of the Baron. But the settlers were so disheartened by the
Indian ravages in September, 1711, in which more than sixty of them were
massacred, that De Graffenriedt sold his landed interests to Thomas
Pollock for œ800 and removed to Virginia. Many of his followers were
employed by Governor Spotswood in his iron-works, inaugurated at Germanna
in 1714.
The following grants of land are of record in the Virginia Land Registry
Office:
Christopher De Graffenriedt, "Gent.," of Prince George county, 1,845
acres in Brunswick county, February 27, 1734, Book No. 5, p. 462;
Tscharner De Graffenriedt, 414 acres in Brunswick county, November 25,
1743, Book No. 20, p. 596.
In the Virginia Gazette of October 31, 1739, a Mrs. De Graffenriedt
announces an entertainment to be given at her house in Williamsburg, Va.