http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~hyde/reger/Abram-Reger.html
Abram Reger,5 the sixth child of Jacob Reger, Sr.,4 was born on 23 Jul 1774 Hampshire Co., VA (now Hardy Co. WVA) (d. 13 Jun 1852 Volga, Barbour Co. WVA). He also like his brother John "Hercules of the Border" was a man of large stature and great physical strength. Although quite young, he was said to have participated in the Indian battle at Buckhannon, now West Virginia. On 30 Mar 1797, he was married to Miss Mary Reeder (b. 4 Jul 1778; d. 20 Jan 1861 Burnersville, WVA), dau. of Joseph Reeder and Elizabeth Henderson, and they reared a large family of children ...
... Abram Reger was tempted by easy money. One way for a frontier man to obtain money from the government was to lie about his involvement in the Revolutionary War and receive a pension. In 1831, an Act was passed to grant pensions to War veterans, though veterans wounded in the War received pensions before. As fifty years had passed since the War, the Federal Government had a hard time validating the claims. Many veterans were in their seventies and eighties and the most of the individuals who could vouch for them were dead. "Evidently there were then, as now scores of patriots(?) who felt no compunction in defrauding their country. ... A Mr. J. Wamsley was actively engaged in writing fraudulent declarations on contract, and usually received as compensation all the first money drawn. [$30 to $90 a year was a typical pension.] He offered to write a declaration for Abram Reger, a son of Jacob Reger, Sr., who was too young for service in the Revolutionary War; but the offer was spurned." [2]
Compiled by Dan Hyde
2. Border Settlers of Northwestern Virginia 1768 to 1785, by Lucullus Virgil McWhorter, 1915, reprinted by Jim Comstock, Richwood, West Virginia, 1974, as part of The West Virginia Heritage Encyclopedia, p 505
