The first two editors of the Pittsylvania Tribune, Tredway and Pigg.

The oldest version of the newspaper in Chatham, Virginia was established in 1869. Over the following generations, several papers have documented the county’s public life, providing modern researchers many resources to draw from. Some of the early editors of the Pittsylvania Tribune newspaper lived industrious lives and their memories deserve renewed attention. 

The founder of Chatham’s early newspaper, William Marshall Tredway Jr., was born in 1839 to Nancy J. Millner and William Marshall Tredway Sr. (who became a county judge). He attended Hampden-Sidney College in Prince Edward County, where he graduated in 1859. When the Civil War began, he volunteered as a private in Company I of the 53rd Infantry Regiment, CSA. He rose quickly through the ranks and was promoted to captain in April 1863. That July, he was wounded in the chest at the Battle of Gettysburg and was hospitalized at Liberty Hospital in Richmond. After his recovery, Tredway returned to service and was elected as a Virginia delegate before the close of the war. His term ended in 1866 and he soon returned to Chatham and resumed the practice of law. The same year, he married Miss Rebecca C. Martin and together they raised six children. She was a sister to the esteemed Dr. Rawley White Martin. 

In 1869, Tredway established a newspaper in the town of Chatham known as the Pittsylvania Tribune. For a decade, he managed the local paper while maintaining his law practice. The writer of his obituary later praised his editorial work, observing that “he edited with the pen of a chaste and vigorous writer, from which he retired on account of professional occupations.” In December 1878,  the Marion, Virginia newspaper Patriot and Herald (Vol. 8, No. 41) shared that “Mr. H. Davis has sold his interest in the Pittsylvania Tribune to his partner, Mr. L.H. Pigg, who becomes sole proprietor of the paper.” 

The second editor, Lysander Henry Pigg, was born in 1850 to Hezekiah Ford Pigg and Martha Rutledge. He was educated at Virginia Military Institute and later served as captain of the local Pittsylvania Guards (4th Virginia Regiment, Company K) during the 1880s. As a man of education, Pigg also served as the county surveyor and the superintendent of county schools. He married Miss Sallie W. Coleman, a niece to editor Tredway. He moved into a newly built home in the upper part of Chatham, set back from the road. The wide hip-roofed house still stands at 106 North Main Street. Their life together, unfortunately, was cut short when Sallie died of pneumonia in 1882. She was only twenty-four years old, and the couple had no children. 

In 1884, disaster struck Chatham when a nighttime fire destroyed several buildings in town. The Alexandria Gazette (Vol. 85, No. 83) described the losses as including “the county jail, the office of the Pittsylvania Tribune, James’s harness store, Brown’s hardware store, White’s livery stable, Guthrie’s jewelry store, and Wager’s hardware store.” Pigg continued business within other buildings in town, remained editor until his sudden death in 1894. According to family tradition, he had been hired to survey a recently burned tract of woods when the heat and dry air brought on a fatal hemorrhage of the nose. His death was a serious loss to Chatham, for he had achieved much in only forty-three years. A few months later, the newspaper was put up for auction as part of his estate. At that time, the building housed a barroom on the first floor, while the second floor served as the Tribune office. His residence was purchased by his sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Pigg Carter, and later became the property of her daughter, Mrs. Maud Carter Clement.

The paper’s next long-serving proprietor was William Spencer Davis, who had been associated with the newspaper since he moved from Farmville to Chatham around 1873. He was listed in the 1880 census as a compositor and printer who boarded with Mr. L.H. Pigg. Davis owned the paper until his death in 1916. Nearly fifty years into the publication of the Pittsylvania Tribune, Mr. Tredway, Mr. Pigg, and Mr. Davis made sure the county’s news was collected and printed each week. It is to be hoped that future digitization will make Chatham’s earliest newspapers more accessible and allow more of the county’s social memory to be recovered.