Valentine Peyton (burgess)

Valentine Peyton (1687–1751), was a Virginia planter and military officer who served in the House of Burgesses representing Prince William County, as well as in local offices.^[1][2]

Early and family life[]

He was born in Westmoreland County to the former Anne Thornton and her planter husband, Henry Peyton(1631-1656). He was named to honor his grandfather, who like his father and his sons also served in the General Assembly. He had several siblings.

He married twice, first in 1725 to Anne, who bore children. After her death, Peyton remarried, to Frances Linton, who bore several children, including Henry Peyton who served in the House of Burgesses and administered his father's will, and Francis Peyton, who would serve many years in the Virginia General Assembly.

Career[]

Beginning around 1711, Peyton began buying land in Prince William County, and in 1728 sold half of a 200 acre tract on Aquia Creek that he had inherited from their father (probably surrounding "Stony Hill") to his brother John.^[3] Like his grandfather, father and brothers, Valentine Peyton operated plantations using enslaved labor.

The Virginia General Assembly established Prince William County in 1731, and Prince William County voters elected Valentine Peyton as one of Prince William County's representatives in the House of Burgesses in 1736, the year the assembly expelled his co-burgess Thomas Osborne.^[4] Peyton was first elected a justice of the peace in either 1738 or 1743, and won election as the Prince William County sheriff in 1749.^[5][6] He also became a warden of Dettingen Parish in 1745 and a vestryman in 1749.^[7]

However, Peyton became involved in controversy, and in 1740 fellow Burgesses censured him and two other Prince William justices of the peace for refusing to certify two petitions of constituents to the General court in Williamsburg, thus depriving them of their right to petition the government for redress of grievances.^[8] The petitions might have been circulated by Scottish-born local merchants who wanted a new town established on Quantico Creek (near the present Quantico Marine Base), which Peyton wanted built on his land by the courthouse but which in 1749 was actually chartered as Dumfries, Virginia (to honor the Scottish port).^[9] During the controversy, Prince William voters elected William Fairfax as Peytons successor, and Fairfax was soon afterward elevated to the Governor's Council (upper house of the assembly)].^[10]

Death and legacy[]

Peyton died in 1751 and his eldest surviving son Henry was appointed executor.^[11] Although its port silted up by the end of the century, and it lost its position as county seat, Dumfries is now the oldest chartered town in Virginia.

References[]