[1] His nephew of the same name, Francis Peyton (1751 or 1764 – 1836) was a Revolutionary War captain and paymaster[citation needed] who became a prominent Alexandria merchant and politician (serving on its city council (1794-1797) and as mayor (1797-1798))[2] and corresponded with Thomas Jefferson.
[a] Her father Henry Dade was a prominent landowner, though members of that family would not win a seat in the Virginia General Assembly until 1807.
At some time after his second marriage in 1822, to Sarah Yates (1800–1864) of King George County, Townsend Peyton sold his slaves and moved down the Ohio river to Oxford, Ohio where he died, although his only son by that second marriage, Col. Robert Ludwell Yates Peyton (1822-1863) never married and became a member of the Confederate States Senate and Colonel of the 3rd Missouri Cavalry, and died in 1863 of malaria incurred defending Vicksburg, Mississippi.
[7][8] Voters first elected him as one of Loudoun County's representatives in the House of Burgesses in 1769, then began a string of re-elections to that part time position.
[15] After the war concluded, voters in Loudoun again elected Peyton to the House of Delegates in 1779, but he instead chose to serve as the county's land commissioner, then reconsidered in 1780, and voters again elected and re-elected him to represent Loudoun County in the House of Delegates, where he served alongside Josiah Clapham then John Alexander and John Carter before failing to win re-election in 1783[16] Peyton then again won one of the seats representing Loudoun county in 1784, and served three terms alongside Richard Bland Lee.
[17] In 1791, voters in Loudoun and neighboring Fauquier Counties elected Peyton to the state senate, and again continued to re-elect him until his death.