Edward Pegram

Edward Pegram was orphaned when only about five years of age and who raised him is not known. He was apprenticed to a bricklayer, named Matthew Harfield, when he was fifteen years old.

Within a few years, by means entirely unknown (for the records of Dinwiddie Co. from this period are lost), he was a very wealthy man, with several plantations and many slaves. However, another myth that should be discarded relates to the supposed land grant of "10 miles square". It never existed. It is possible that one of the related families may have obtained such a land grant but it was not one of our early Pegrams. However, he was established in Dinwiddie Co. by 1755 when we find a patent to Joseph Tucker, Jr. and Stephen Evans for 430 acres on the N. side of Saponac (sic) Creek adjoining "Starke, Pegram, Wagnon, Bolling and Stith".

On Sept 9, 1780, he hosted a Methodist meeting at his house in Dinwiddie Co., where Francis Asbury, who had been appointed minister "Over our brethren in America" by John Wesley, preached. It is interesting to note that there are also records that Francis Ashby is shown as having visited the family of Daniel Pegram in North Carolina during this same period.

Credit for much of the research on Edward Pegram's line was done by Dr. Samuel W. Simmons who spent many years researching Edward Pegram's line which resulted in the publication of his book: THE PEGRAMS OF VIRGINIA AND THEIR DESCENDANTS; 1688-1984; Atlanta, Georgia, 1984.

For many years we felt that we should restrict our research to Daniel's line in order to complete the family history. However, Dr. Simmons is now deceased and his book is out of print and not readily available to those just starting their research. For this reason, we have decided to incorporate the information compiled by Dr. Simmons. This would be impossible were it not for the efforts of Winona Solomon who has for many years been building a database of ALL the Pegram family lines. She has kindly shared her research so that we can make it available here for all our Pegram descendants.