In 1804 he married Susan, daughter of William Strother Madison, a niece of the Right Rev. James Madison, Bishop of Virginia, and relative of President Madison, by whom he left an only son, the late Col. William M. Peyton, of Roanoke, who was himself a man of gifted intellect and extensive acquirements, of upright and honorable character, who acquired as a public speaker and member of the House of Delegates of Virginia, a distinguished reputation for ability and statesmanship. We anticipate events in order to state that after losing his wife by her untimely death, he married in 1821 Ann Montgomery Lewis, a daughter of the old Revolutionary hero, Major John Lewis of the Sweet Springs; by his wife Mary, a daughter of the gallant Col. William Preston, of Smithfield, Montgomery county, who was wounded at the battle of Guildford, from the effects of which he died years afterward. By his second marriage he left ten children. In 1806 he was elected to the House of Delegates. This gave him little or no pleasure, as he preferred the profession but he served several years, up to 1810 on public grounds. Though there was not much scope in the House for his powers, he took an active part in all business and in the debates, and such was his political sagacity, his indomitable energy and his vehement eloquence, that he had almost unrivaled power over his hearers and soon became a leader, inspiring his followers with enthusiastic love and admiration, and was regarded by them, if not by both sides of the Chamber, as the ablest man in the House and the equal of any in the State. At that period he was as remarkable for his wise and prudent counsels as for his invincible eloquence. During the session of 1809-10 Mr. Peyton made the celebrated report as to an amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which is appended to this sketch. Staunton was early in the century a no inconsiderable town, and to lawyer and litigant alike the most important point west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, because the seat of the superior courts of law and chancery--the jurisdiction of the chancery court extending over the whole western part of the State. This fact caused many able and learned lawyers to make it their home, among the most prominent were Judge Coalter, Daniel Sheffey, Chapman Johnson, Briscoe G. Baldwin and Samuel Blackburn, and the terms were attended by such legal lights, from other circuits, as George Hay, William Wirt, P. P. Barbour, B. W. Leigh, L. W. Tazewell, Henry St. G. Tucker and others. Staunton was then regarded, and for many years later, as having the ablest resident bar in the State.