William M. Peyton

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William Madison Peyton (September 4, 1804 – February 16, 1868) was a Virginia lawyer and politician who helped start the coal industry in what would become the coal country of Virginia and West Virginia. He owned enslaved people and supported the Confederate cause in the Civil War. He died financially ruined soon after the war.

Born in Montgomery County, Peyton came from a prominent Virginia family. His father was a lawyer and local official, and Peyton was related to several famous Virginians. He studied at Staunton Academy, then attended Princeton and Yale, graduating from Yale in 1824. He married Sally Anne Eliza Taylor in 1826, and they had many children, though many did not live to adulthood.

Peyton became a lawyer in 1826 and practiced in several western Virginia counties. He traveled a lot, and at one point hosted President Andrew Jackson. He declined a federal appointment because of health reasons and instead focused on his legal work and politics. He lived on an estate along the Roanoke River and was known for his hospitality.

In politics, Peyton served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Botetourt County, starting in the mid-1830s. He worked to promote Western Virginia’s interests and internal improvements, including efforts to develop coal lands in Boone County and to improve transportation to move coal to market. He also served on the James River and Kanawha Canal company and took part in the 1850 Virginia Constitutional Convention to push for education.

Peyton owned enslaved people, both in Roanoke and in Boone County, reflecting the era’s plantation system. By the 1850s he was investing heavily in coal lands and related projects, hoping to build a coal-based economy for the region.

As the Civil War approached, Peyton spent time in New York, where federal authorities watched him closely because of his Southern sympathies. When Virginia seceded, he refused to promise not to aid the Confederacy and eventually moved around the country trying to return home and protect his family. He finally made it back to Virginia, though his health and finances were badly damaged. He spent his final years at an estate in Albemarle County.

Peyton died in 1868 after a stroke, having lost most of his property and wealth. He is buried in Thornrose Cemetery in Staunton, Virginia. A town in Boone County, Peytona, was named in his honor for his coal work, and his Elmwood estate in Roanoke later became Elmwood Park, though the house itself burned down in 1870.