OUR HISTORY

Long before Europeans arrived on these shores, the Tuscarora Indians lived along New Bern's riverbanks in a village they called Chattoka. Christoph von Graffenried established the first European settlement in 1710 of Swiss and Palatine immigrants. They named the settlement after Bern, the capital of Switzerland.

You can read the history of Christ Church, The Crown of Life in this free download. We are in the process of writing a second edition that will take us from the mid-1900s to the early 2020s. We hope to publish it in 2025.