Bob

Location: Montgomery Hall, Augusta County, Virginia

Bob was appraised in 1847, $700.00. He was sold to John Lewis Peyton in 1851, $640.00. Bob worked in the house and as a carriage driver at Montgomery Hall and had some responsibility for the horses there. Peyton lived in his law office in Staunton, Virginia prior to his marriage and later at his farm, “Shirley,” near Staunton. Peyton also inherited his father’s lower arm in Alleghany County, Virginia. During and after the Civil War, Peyton lived in England and Guernsey, the Channel Islands. He returned to Virginia in 1876 and purchased a former part of Spring Farm, much of which is now Gypsy Hill Park in Staunton, where he built “Steephill.” Peyton lived briefly in Ohio but returned to Steephill until his death in 1896.

Henry Rideout and Andy Primus were also sold to John Lewis Peyton in 1851. Tom Cole, Ben Cole, Maria, and Hannah were sold to Peyton in 1847. Sarah Moore and her daughter, Harrietta, were sold to Peyton in 1856. John Cobb Washington, Peyton’s father-in-law, gave enslaved African-Americans to John Lewis Peyton at the time of Peyton’s marriage to Washington’s daughter, Eliza Clark “Bettie” Washington. One of these enslaved men, George, 22, died of pneumonia in Augusta County, Virginia in 1856. John Cobb Washington lived at “Vernon” in Lenoir County, North Carolina.