BIO:  Benjamin Pedan, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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Part II, Biographical Sketches, Lower Chanceford Township, Pg 125

BENJAMIN PEDAN, before the time of the Revolutionary war, became a prominent and 
influential citizen of the lower end of the county.  He was appointed justice of 
the peace for his township under the first constitution of the State of 
Pennsylvania, in June, 1777, and in the year 1790, was one of the five 
representatives of York County who helped to frame the second constitution of the 
State.  For many years after this event he served as justice.  In 1805, he was 
elected a member of State legislature.  In the taxable list of Chanceford 
Township for the year 1783, he was assessed for 307 acres of land, one slave, 
five horses, six cows and six sheep.  Benjamin Pedan was married to Jane Giffin, 
and came from Frederick County, Md., in 1772, bought 307 acres of land, added 
eighteen adjoining acres, and at the time of his death, in 1813, owned 325 acres 
and a number of slaves.  He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church.  He had 
eleven children.  His first wife having died, he married a second time.  John 
Pedan was the ninth child by the first marriage, and was born June 7, 1780, in 
Chanceford Township (now Lower Chanceford), where he remained until his death in 
1840.  His father died in 1813.  John Pedan was married to Nancy Campbell, who 
was a native of Stewartstown, Ireland, and immigrated to America about 1800.  
John Benjamin Pedan grew to manhood on his father’s farm in Lower Chanceford, and 
received his educational training in the public schools of his native township.  
In 1863 he enlisted in Capt. Stevens’ company of ninety-day men, who entered the 
service during Lee’s second invasion of Pennsylvania.  In 1864 he purchased the 
farm of 140 acres, on which he now resides.  Samuel M. Pedan, Esq., whose 
portrait appears in this work, was a son of John and Nancy (Campbell) Pedan, was 
born on the old homestead, and there lived and died; he was for fifteen years 
known as a prominent justice of the peace of his township.  He was a man of 
excellent character and sterling worth.  He served in various positions of honor 
and trust among the people of the lower town.  His death, while he was yet in the 
prime of life, on February 11, 1882, was deeply felt by a large circle of friends 
and acquaintances.  He was never married.  The other members of the family of 
John Pedan and Margaret J., Martha E., Allie E., Annie A. and Charles J.