Young Peerey, only 13 when his father died, traveled west to the Clinch River, with his brother and guardian John.
They continued west to explore the wilderness that would become the states of West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. In 1777, 28-year-old Peerey appeared before the Clerk of Montgomery County, Virginia, to be included on the original list of Virginia men to swear the “Oath of Allegiance to The States.”
Elected as Ensign, of Captain James Maxwell’s Company of Virginia Militia, Peerey was responsible for “carrying the colors into battle” during the decisive 1781–1782 period of the Revolutionary War. The Virginia Militia served with Green’s Army at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse and with Lafayette on the Virginia Campaign, the Siege of Yorktown and finally the Western Campaign.
Following the war, Peerey and his wife Margaret made their home on the south side of the Clinch River, in what became Tazewell County, Virginia. Throughout the 1790s and early 1800s Peerey continued to serve the growth and development of Virginia and The States, often traveling west as a source deposed or testifying in Circuit Courts for judgements of land ownership, boundary and development based on his early wilderness travels and knowledge of the early settlers.