Belle Aire (often confused with a plantation about five miles inland with the same pronunciation but the name Bel Air which was owned and operated by the Ewell family) was between the Occoquan River and Neabsco Creek near the ferry (later bridge) conducting the King's Highway across the Occoquan River and which became Woodbridge, Virginia. It had been the property of William Linton a previous husband of this man's mother, Susan, who married Benjamin Grayson by 1732. William Grayson received his first schooling locally under Charles Tyler, and later became known for familiarity with Latin and Greek as well as English history. His guardian allowed his education in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania, and (after graduating) William Grayson sailed to England. Although some family sources claim he studied law for two and a half years, and received his degree from the University of Oxford, neither university nor Inns of Court documentation exists to support that tradition, so he was likely apprenticed to British merchant bankers like William Lee. When his brother and guardian Benjamin faced financial troubles in 1762 (so that he mortgaged his entire estate to his brother Spence), William returned home and as his need for a guardian ended, found that his spending abroad had also diminished the capital he had inherited. Grayson married Eleanor Smallwood, a sister of Maryland Governor William Smallwood, who survived him. They had four sons (Frederick, George, Robert and Alfred) and a daughter (Hebe). Return to the Virginia colony About three years after returning to Virginia (probably at the conclusion of a clerkship with a local lawyer), Grayson began practicing law in Prince William County and three nearby counties. The county seat was at Dumfries, Virginia, a port town (now the oldest in the state) not far from Grayson's home as well as Belle Aire Plantation, which his brother Spence Monroe Grayson (1737–1798) inherited in 1757. On the other side of the Occoquan River lay Fairfax County, Virginia, which had split from Prince William County when Grayson was a boy. The wealthiest planter families (who could hire lawyers to protect their interests) owned land in both counties, and often held positions on church vestries, responsible for social welfare activities, including caring for orphans and the poor. Thus Grayson was familiar with local leaders, especially George Mason and George Washington, who served on the vestry of Pohick Church. Furthermore, after his brother Spence