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| John Howe Peyton August County Courthouse |
April 13, 1847
On the 3d inst. at his residence near Staunton, John H. Peyton, Esq. in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He was a gentleman of high merit and distinguished reputation remarkable -- for the vigor of his intellect, and his excellent social domestic qualities. Mr. Peyton was a native of Prince William county, and completed his education at Princeton College. After qualifying himself for the bar, he settled in the town of Dumfries, and commenced the practice of law, which he pursued with great success; but the state of his health rendering a change of climate necessary, he removed in the summer of 1809, to the town of Staunton, and served the ensuing winter in the House of Delegates, to which he had been elected from his native county. He continued for many years the practice of his profession, in which he acquired a high reputation, and was greatly distinguished by his eminent ability as prosecutor for the Commonwealth in several counties. Retiring from the bar, in the latter part of his life, to the enjoyment of an ample fortune and liberal hospitality, he was called into the public service as the representative of the Augusta and Rockbridge district in the State Senate, and possessed so fully the confidence of his constituents, that, though he declined a re-election, they chose him for a second term.
A few years since, his health received a severe shock, which compelled him to resign his seat from the Legislature and devote himself exclusively to his family, in the bosom of which he bore the afflictions of an oppressive disease with philosophic resignation.
A wealth of information on John Howe Peyton can be found on the website for his Montgomery Hall Estate.
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