The town was called New Berne, after Berne, in Switzerland, the
birth-place of Graffenreidt. This was the first important introduction
into Eastern Carolina of a most excellent class of liberty-loving
people, whose descendants wherever their lots were cast, in our
country, gave illustrious proof of their valor and patriotism during
the Revolutionary war.

In 1729, the Lords Proprietors (except Lord Granville) surrendered the
government of the province, with all the franchises under the charter
of Charles II, and their property in the soil, to the crown for a
valuable consideration. The population at that time did not exceed ten
thousand inhabitants. George Burrington. Governor of the province
under the Lords Proprietors, was re-appointed to the same office by
the King. In February, 1731, he thus officially writes to the Duke of
New Castle. "The inhabitants of North Carolina are not industrious,
but subtle and crafty to admiration; always behaved insolently to
their Governors; some of them they have imprisoned; drove others out
of the country; and at other times have set up a governor of their own
choice, supported by men under arms. These people are neither to be
cajoled nor outwitted. Whenever any governor attempts to effect
anything by these means, he will lose his labor, and show his
ignorance." Lord Granville's part of the colony of North Carolina
(one-eighth) was not laid off to him, adjoining Virginia, until 1743.
At that date, a strong tide of emigration was taking place from the
Chowan and Roanoke, the pioneer attractive points of the colony, as
well as from abroad, to the great interior, and Western territory, now
becoming dotted with numerous habitations. The Tuscarora Indians, the
terrible scourge of Eastern Carolina, having been subdued, and entered
into a treaty of peace and friendship in 1718, no serious obstacle
interposed to prevent a Western extension of settlements. Already