Memoir of John Howe Peyton / in sketches by his contemporaries, together with some of his public and private letters, etc., also a sketch of Ann M. Peyton

by Unknown

FROM JOHN B. MINOR, LL. D.,

professor of law, &c.
University of Virginia, February 3d, 1881.

My Dear Sir:

I pray you to accept my thanks for the brief memoirs of your distinguished father, which you were so kind as to send me.

It is very pleasing to have before my eyes the well remembered features, expression and attitude of a man for whom, through my whole professional life, I have cherished the most unreserved respect and admiration.

For many years I have been accustomed to regard the county of Augusta as occupying the first position in the Commonwealth, in respect to the morale and intelligence of its people, and the soundness of its public sentiment, and have ascribed the pre-eminence, in a marked degree, to the lofty character of its bar—a pre-eminence in uprightness, as well as in abilities and learning, which has now subsisted continuously for near a hundred years. There is no community in the State, I believe, which has been blessed, for a blessing indeed it has proved, for so long a period of time, with such a wonderful and uninterrupted succession of great and virtuous lawyers.

In that remarkable series, your father is a most conspicuous figure, and by his example and influence contributed as much as any one to the noble result, as I apprehend it to exist, in the elevated tone of the people of Augusta.

Doubtless the highest influences of religion co-operated powerfully to accomplish what has been achieved, but I do not doubt that one of the chief auxiliaries was the stainless purity existing for so many years among the practitioners of the law, rendered more conspicuous and patent by the extraordinary capacity which accompanied it.

I look with trembling anxiety to the young men who now compose the bulk of the Augusta bar, many of whom are my pupils, to sustain and transmit unimpaired the illustrious reputation for lofty integrity and eminent ability and learning, which has come down to them through so many successions of their predecessors, so that for the next hundred years, as for the last, old Augusta may continue to enjoy the distinction she has won.

Thanking you again for kindly remembering me in the distribution of the sketch, I am, with great respect and esteem,

Yours truly,
John B. Minor.

James D. Davidson, in a letter dated Lexington, Va., January 25th, 1879, and addressed to Col. John L. Peyton, says:

"When I knew Mr. Peyton in practice in Rockbridge county, I was comparatively a young member of the bar, and I looked up to him, as a man of imperial, far seeing, commanding intellect, and in every respect as a superior being, not only as a lawyer, but as a man."

Letters and excerpts from letters to whom the little pamphlet giving an account of the presentation of Mr. Peyton's likeness to the county were sent:

Judge S. Bassett French, of Mynchester, says:

"Mr. Peyton was a wonderful man in his day, and had few peers in any age."

Col. Wm. A. Anderson, in a letter to Col. Peyton, dated Lexington, August 8th, 1894, says:

"Accept my thanks for the memorial pamphlet of your honored father. Some knowledge of his splendid gifts, his eloquence, learning and lofty traits of character had come down to me among the traditions of the Lexington bar, at which he was for many years a distinguished practitioner, and I am very glad to have in more enduring form the sketches of his life, character and services."