Charles Pettigrew was born in Pennsylvania on 20 March 1744. A schoolmaster in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1774 he went to England where he became a deacon in the Anglican church before returning to Edenton in 1775. There in 1778 1778 he signed an oath swearing his allegiance to the State of North Carolina and promised to report any treasonous conspiracies that might threaten North Carolina's independence. The same year he also married Mary Blount, a signer of the Edenton Tea Party Resolves. He died on 8 April 1807.