Figure of the Week

Peter Hedgman (c.1700-1765) was the son of Nathaniel Hedgman (c.1665-1721) and his wife, Catherine (LNU) (before 1687-1708) who purchased George Mason’s (1629-1686) Accokeek Run property in 1707.  Robert “King” Carter (1663-1732) sent Nathaniel from Lancaster County to be overseer on Carter’s Stafford plantations.  He met with a violent death by which he earned the disdain of Col. Carter.  The latter wrote of his overseer, “I have heard of late he hath been a very great delinquent from my business and lived a loose, rebelling life which hath brought him to his untimely catastrophe.  As for entertaining his son, a wild young lad that hath no experience in the world, I can by no means think proper.”  Despite Carter’s opinion of his overseer’s son, Peter Hedgman studied law and became one of the Crown Commissioners tasked with locating the Nothrern Neck boundary in 1746.  In 1749 he was appointed a trustee for the new town of Dumfries in Prince William County.  Peter also served Stafford as a justice from at least 1729 to 1745.  He was a burgess for Prince William from 1732-1740.  In 1721 Peter married Margaret Mauzy (1702-1754), the daughter of his Potomac Creek neighbor, John Mauzy (c.1675-c.1718).