HISTORY OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
THE PEYTON FAMILY
The Peyton family is of high antiquity in the mother country. According to Camden, Du Moulin, and other historians and antiquarians, the founder was William de Malet, one of the great barons who accompanied William I to the conquest of England, and obtained from that monarch many grants of manors and lordships as a recompense for his military services. Among these lordships were Sibton and Peyton Halls, in Norfolk, from the latter of which, Reginald, a nephew of William de Malet, assumed the surname of Peyton, in accordance with the usage of the times.
The name is also one of the earliest connected with the colony of Va. Sir Henry Peyton was knighted by James I, and was gentleman of the Privy Chamber of Prince Henry, 1610, was a member of the London Company to whom King James, Mary 23d, 1609, granted a charter to deduce a colony and make habitation in that part of America commonly called Va. Sir Henry Peyton was the fourth son of the Right Hon. Sir Thomas Peyton, M. P. for Dunwich in 1557, and Customer of Plymouth, by his wife, Lady Cecilia Bouchier, daughter of John, second Earl of Bath. He m Lady Mary, d of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. His nephew, son of his brother, Robert, namely: John Peyton, is supposed to have been the first who made the voyage to Va., circa 1622, when in his 26th year, and to have settled in the colony 1644. He m Ellen Pakington, of London, and left two sons:
I. Henry Peyton, of Acquia, Westmoreland county, Va.;
II. Valentine Peyton, of Nominy, Westmoreland county, Va., a colonel in the British army.
The descendants of the two are scattered through Va., and the South and West. From Valentine was descended the gallant and patriotic Col. Harry Peyton, of Revolutionary fame, who, when he heard that his last son, Yelverton, had been killed at the siege of Charleston, S. C., 1780, by a cannon ball from the enemys fleet, exclaimed: Would to God I had another to put in his place.*