[1][2] As explained below, he was named for a great-uncle who emigrated to the Virginia colony and served as a burgess for then-vast Westmoreland County in 1663-64.
That Valentine Peyton, a younger son of Henry Peyton of Lincoln's Inn in London (1590-1656), was also an attorney and served in the House of Burgesses in 1663-64,[3] as well as Colonel of the Westmoreland County militia before his death in 1665, and the death of his sole son in 1687 (he had married the widow Frances Gerrard Speake, who would subsequently outlive husbands Capt.
After her death, Peyton remarried, to Frances Linton, daughter of a merchant who emigrated from Scotland and who bore several children, including Henry 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 representing Loudoun County.
Beginning around 1711, Peyton began buying land in what became 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.
In 1736, he, Richard Blackburn and Bertrand Ewell certified the accounts of the estate of William Linton (either his father-in-law or brother-in-law), which included several enslaved adults and children.