William Paxton (ca. 1777–1853), farmer and public official, served Rockbridge County as a justice of the peace, 1807–27. He was county surveyor for many years prior to his resignation in 1831 and sheriff during the latter half of the 1830s. Paxton also represented Rockbridge County for two terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, 1816–18. He surveyed TJ’s property at Natural Bridge in November 1821, sat for a time on the Virginia Board of Public Works, and superintended a great deal of local canal and road construction. Paxton owned seven slaves in 1830 and eleven a decade later, with the value of his real estate estimated at $10,000 in 1850 (William M. Paxton, The Paxtons [1903], 263; Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine 48 [1916]: 439; Oren F. Morton, A History of Rockbridge County Virginia [1920], 564–6; Leonard, General Assembly description begins Cynthia Miller Leonard, comp., The General Assembly of Virginia, July 30, 1619–January 11, 1978: A Bicentennial Register of Members, 1978 description ends , 287, 291; MB description begins James A. Bear Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826, 1997, 2 vols., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1380, 1381; JHD description begins Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia description ends [1820–21 sess.], 164 [6 Feb. 1821]; DNA: RG 29, CS, Rockbridge Co., 1830, 1850, Lexington, 1840; gravestone inscription in Paxton Family Cemetery, Mechanicsville, Rockbridge Co.).

The original grant from the Crown to TJ for the 157-acre Natural Bridge tract is dated 5 July 1774 (Vi: RG 4, Virginia Land Office Patent Book, 42:657–8).