Pegram House

Part of an excellent map of Trinity College in 1902 from Digital Durham's collection. (I have to wonder if it was student-drawn - or perhaps professor drawn, given that "Favorite Loafing Place" is noted. Update - it was drawn by William Budd, Trinity College Student and later founder of the Budd-Piper Roofing Company. His house still stands at 903 S. Duke St.)
The map is oriented with west at the top.
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection. Scanned by Digital Durham)

The Pegram house may be the only extant historic structure in Durham to have been moved not once, but twice.

Built in 1891, the Pegram house was one of five houses built during the original construction of the Durham campus of Trinity College as housing for faculty. These houses: the Pegram, Cranford, Bassett, Merritt, and Mims houses (for the professors that originally lived in the houses) were located along "Faculty Row", at the southeast corner of the campus. Although the configuration of now-Duke University East Campus has changed significantly, structures visible in the above map still in their original location include Epworth Hall, the Pavillion, and the Roney Fountain. N. Guess Road was later renamed Buchanan Blvd., and the original location of Watts Hospital is visible at the lower left corner.

1913 Sanborn map overlaid on Google imagery, showing the location of Faculty Row relative to present day. I've placed a red arrow to show the Pegram house.

View from the tower of the original Washington Duke building, 1897, looking southeast towards downtown. The Pegram house is in the left foreground. In the immediate background is the original Watts Hospital

Contractor TS Christian built the house for William H. Pegram, first a student, and later a professor at Trinity College when it was located in Randolph County, after it moved to Durham County, and after it became Duke University.

Pegram was born August 18, 1846, at Chalk Level in Harnett County and fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. He began teaching school immediately after the war, and in 1869, he enrolled at Trinity College. After graduation in 1873, he began working as a tutor of Natural Science at the college and became a full professor the following year. Primarily a teacher of chemistry, he would also teach astronomy, physics, geology, and even English during his career. He also coached the debate team.

Per the Pegram Family website:

"According to an unsigned history of the physics departments, c. 1905,

'In 1873 a bright young man, just out of college and full of the fine enthusiasm of youth was appointed to teach the sciences. It did not take him long to doff his coat, roll up his sleeves and resolve to make something happened. This youth was William H. Pegram. The records do not show whether this fine enthusiasm was fundamentally excited by a love of pure science or by a love of the President's daughter. The fact is well-established, however, that through it he won the unqualified approval of the President and also of the President's daughter, and thereby won for himself a career in science.'"

His wife was Emma Craven, daughter of the one-time president of Trinity College, Braxton Craven, for whom Craven Memorial Hall (now demolished) would be named on the Durham campus. Pegram and his wife moved to Durham with the college in 1892. After 1900, Pegram was able to narrow his focus to the teaching of chemistry. He and his wife would have 5 children, all eventual graduates of Trinity College.

Per the Pegram Family Website:

"In his obituary in the Alumni Register a conversation between Washington Duke, wealthy founder of American Tobacco Company and the modestly salaried Professor is reported. Washington Duke outlined his career's progress to Pegram who countered with: 'After my Civil War experience, I spent four years on my father's farm and then four years in Trinity College, graduated 1873, was called the same year to the chair of Natural Science in said College, and have been with it ever since. From this last statement you know my financial rating.' Duke saw the point and countered with 'Yes, but you have made something better than money; you have helped to make men.'"

Probably some solace to Pegram, but money was on his mind when, in 1916, the College told the professors on Faculty Row that their houses needed to go - if the correspondence between father and son Pegram is accurate, at the professors' expense.

Per the Pegram website:

"As the campus expanded, the faculty houses were moved across the street and scattered within Trinity Park. The Pegram house was moved to a lot apparently owned by Pegram at 308 Buchanan Blvd (then Guess Mill [sic] Road). In a letter to his father March 18, 1916, George Braxton Pegram wrote:

'Since hearing that you have to move your house I have been wondering how much it is going to cost and how much I may be able to help out on the expense. I should think the college ought to do the moving or at least best a good part of the expense, since putting professors out of their houses is really cutting their salaries down. If I remember rightly you have two lots on Guess Street, one of them unencumbered and I suppose you will move the house to that one, but I have only a very vague idea of what it might cost to move. We are perhaps in less strident financial circumstances with our house than last year, which moves me to hope to be of at least a little assistance to you.'

The cost of the move is not recorded, but it is known that the move was accomplished by placing the house on logs and pulling it with a team of horses.

George Pegram wrote again to his father concerning the move on Sept. 7, 1918:

'I wonder how your house moving progressed. Charles Edward, I believe it was, told me that the dining room and kitchen had already gone, but that you did not expect to move the house proper until some weeks later. You have probably taken a pleasure in seeing that the new foundations are at least as good as the old ones, so as to obviate somewhat the cracking tendency the house always had.'

I'm not sure why the College picked this point in time to boot the houses from campus, but it was about the same time the stone wall was erected around perimeter of the campus.

Pegram retired in 1919, although he remained a professor emeritus at the university, and particularly involved with the Chemistry Department after the school became Duke University. Pegram died in 1928, and is buried at the former Trinity College campus in Randolph County.

The Pegram house remained in his family until 1966, when the last of his unmarried children, Annie Pegram, died.

"On February 20, 1962 she had transferred, via trust, the house to NCNB. Following a suit filed by Greensboro College against NCNB, executor for Annie Pegram, it was sold at public auction on Nov. 22, 1966 for $11,500 to Frances G. Crabtree. She, in turn, sold it to Herndon Building Company, April 3, 1969. Threatened with demolition to make way for a parking lot [for the Erwin Apartments, built next door to the house in the 1930s that] Mr. Fred Herndon owned next door, he offered to move the house at his own expense and make it available to a citizens' group. The Durham Historic Preservation Society bought it and the 3120 square foot house was moved again in September, 1977 to [1019] Minerva Ave."

Pegram House on Buchanan Blvd., 03.15.77
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

House move, 09.18.77
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

House move, 09.18.77
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

House move, 09.18.77
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

House move, 09.18.77
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

House move, 09.18.77
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

House move, 09.18.77
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

House move, 09.18.77
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

House move, 09.18.77
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Don't know the story here, but this does not look good:

House move, 09.18.77
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

House move, 09.18.77
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Fortunately, I know that the story had a happy ending.

Pegram House at 1019 Minerva, 1980.

The house remains standing and occupied at its third location.

Pegram House at 1019 Minerva, 10.03.09

The second location remains a parking lot for the Erwin Apartments. The walkway from the road is the only remaining evidence of the house at this location.

308 N Buchanan, 10.21.09

Original Location

Second Location

Present Location


36.004237,-78.910179