Catherine PAYTON and Alander PAYTON of Overwharton Parish

In 1740, there are two PEYTON (PAYTON) women, born circa 1722, whose marriages were documented in the Overwharton Parish Register of Stafford County, Virginia. The first was CATHERINE PAYTON who married WILLIAM SCROGGING on 18 February 1740. The second woman was ALANDER PAYTON who married JAMES HEFFERNON on 20 May 1740. I have found no records which reveal the parentage of these two PAYTON women, but preponderance of evidence can be employed to claim them as granddaughters of either VALENTINE PEYTON or PHILIP PEYTON who appear on pages 28 through 32 of PEYTONs Along the Aquia.

Because the two women married within a few months of each other is a good indication that they may have been sisters. The possible parentage of CATHERINE PAYTON is mentioned on pages 45, 46. Although we cannot document their parents, it can be presumed that their PEYTON ancestors were HENRY and Ellen PEYTON, pages 19 through 22, who immigrated from England to Aquia Creek, Virginia in the early seventeenth century, and whose British lineage is well established.

Stafford County Order Book 1749-1755

Most of the battles of the War Between the States were fought on the terrain of Virginia, resulting in great losses to courthouse records. This further compounded the losses already suffered during the American Revolution. Many Virginia records were stolen by Yankee soldiers and shipped North to their homes for safekeeping.

It is indeed a joyous occasion when these stolen records are discovered extant and returned to Virginia. An eighteenth century court order book from Stafford County was recently found in New Jersey. It had been taken by Captain William Augustus Treadwell of the 4th New York Infantry, and his misdeed was documented in his own handwriting inside the front cover of said volume. He wrote that it had been prepared in October 1791, being a transcription of court records covering 1749 to 1755. The Order Book is currently undergoing conservation, and when that is completed, it will be available at both the Stafford County Courthouse and the Library of Virginia.

The above information is from the "Mount Vernon Genealogical Society Newsletter," November 2012, written by Sharon B. Hodges, page 13.

Lost Ledger Returns Home from Fredericksburg.com

William PEYTON of 1658

Virginia Patent Book 4 ("Cavaliers and Pioneers, Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents and Grants, 1623-1800," 1934)

The "Wm. PEYNTON" mentioned in the grant, seems to be the William PEYTON on pages 12, 13 of PEYTONs Along the Aquia. The creek mentioned, Chopawamsic Creek, is in Prince William County, Virginia and is where settled the HARRISON family who married into the PEYTON family of Prince William County. See the maps on pages xiv, xv of the aforementioned book for Chopawamsic Creek.

John PEYTON of Winchester, Virginia

JOHN PEYTON of Winchester, Virginia appears on pages 60, 210, of PEYTONs Along the Aquia, along with his wife SUSANNAH RUTHERFORD, his children and his lineage back to the earliest PEYTONS of Aquia, Virginia. His birth date should be given as 1757, as that agrees with other records that he left.

He also appears on page 502 of Reverend Horace Edwin Hayden's "PEYTON, of England and Virginia", as born "14 April 1763," and on page 530, as "JOHN PEYTON, Jr." (son of Henry, Valentine, Henry, Henry, Henry) "of Frederick county, Va., born cir. 1757;" with his wife, eight children and nine grandchildren.

John PEYTON and Harriet TERRILL

I have determined that the John PEYTON (#307) on page 158 of my genealogy book, PEYTONs Along the Aquia, is the John PEYTON of Rappahannock County, Virginia, born about 1804, who appears in the 1840 through 1880 censuses of said county, in the village of Stonewall. There is no evidence that he ever married, but early on he apparently allied with a Mulatto slave women, Harriet TERRILL. Beginning on the 1840 census, we find John PEYTON owning three slaves, one of whom was a Mulatto female, age ten to twenty-three. On the 1870 census, his former slave was enumerated in his household as Harriet TERRILL, Mulatto, age 52, "keeping house" with twelve Mulatto children named TERRILL. On the 1880 census, the three Mulatto children remaining in the household were enumerated as Alice PEYTON 18, Jordan PEYTON 21, and Nannie PEYTON 14, daughters and son of William DENNIS who was recorded as the Head of Household. Perhaps the census taker was confused. John PEYTON's parents are named on pages 157, 158 of PEYTONs Along the Aquia where his descent is traced back to the PEYTON family of Aquia Creek, Virginia.

Wives of CRAVEN PEYTON (c1730-1781)

On page 71, of my genealogy book, PEYTONs Along the Aquia, the three sons, VALENTINE PEYTON, WILLIAM PEYTON and CRAVEN PEYTON, recorded as belonging to CRAVEN PEYTON and ANN WEST, I now believe to be sons of CRAVEN and his first wife, ANN HARRISON.

CRAVEN PEYTON first appears on page 499, of Reverend Hayden's "PEYTON, of England and Virginia" where he is described as the first in the Virginia Line of PEYTON to be named for CRAVEN, the son of Sir ROBERT PEYTON, #20 on page 484. Reverend Hayden gives CRAVEN's wife as "ANN." Additional research implies that CRAVEN married ANN HARRISON first, then ANN WEST. Furthermore, I find no proof that the mother of ANN WEST was from the HARRISON family.