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- 17 Jun
Listen To The Quiet
The Peyton family cemetery in Raymond, Mississippi is a quiet place. The voices of early settlers are silent. Choctaw Indians once lived on these lands. The Indians reluctantly gave the land (a portion of some 5 ½ million acres they owned) as part of the Treaty of Doaks Stand in October 1820 to the United States. John B. Peyton was one of the surveyors of the land ceded by the treaty and President Andrew Jackson signed Peyton’s first land patent in 1828.
John and his wife Mary moved to Raymond in 1829. It took 3 years to build their home, which they called Waverly. John was the “founding father” of Raymond, served 2 terms in the House of Representatives, was a successful, farmer, surveyor, and promoter of the Bolton railroad to connect Alabama and Vicksburg, Mississippi.
General Grant occupied Waverly in 1863 as his headquarters during the Battle of Raymond in the Civil War. He slept in a tent and used the gallery and big parlor for conferences with his officers during the day. Aunt Anne Peyton met with General Grant and pleaded with him to give back some of the food he had taken in order to feed her children. He agreed and wrote that “No troops coming this way in the future were to bother anything on this place.” The Peyton family was grateful for the General’s kindness and compassion.
Waverly has been passed down from one generation to the next for more than 180 years. The house has been lovingly restored and tombstones in a wooded area on the property record the births and deaths of Peyton family members.
Mary S. Peyton, my great grandmother, is buried at Waverly. We came to listen to the quiet – to honor her family and to imagine the lives of those who called this place home.
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dotty
