William C. Clayton

William C. Clayton (January 24, 1831 – March 11, 1915) was an American educator, lawyer, politician, and businessperson in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Clayton served in the West Virginia Senate representing the Eleventh Senatorial District of West Virginia from 1875 until 1879. He was twice principal of the Romney Classical Institute in Romney in 1853 and 1866.

Clayton was born in 1831 in Hampshire County, Virginia (present-day West Virginia). He received his early education at home from his father, Dr. Townsend Clayton, and attended Romney Academy and the Romney Classical Institute. Clayton continued his post-secondary education at the University of Virginia between 1846 and 1848. Following his graduation, he taught in Amelia County, and served as principal of Washington Academy in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., the Charlestown Academy in Charles Town, and the Romney Classical Institute in 1853 and 1866. He relocated to Romney in 1859 where he began practicing law, and relocated to Keyser in 1873, where he established a law practice.

He was elected to the West Virginia Senate in 1874 and served alongside R. B. Sherrard and David Pugh, representing West Virginia's 11th Senate district. He unsuccessfully ran for election in the Twelfth Senatorial District for a judicial seat in 1883. In 1890, he served as the vice president of the West Virginia Bar Association from West Virginia's 2nd congressional district. By 1907, he was president of the Mineral County Bar Association, and in 1909 he served on the bar association's Committee on Legal Education. In 1892 Clayton was under consideration as a Democratic candidate for a long term on the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, but was not elected as the party's candidate at the state convention.

Clayton was an incorporator, shareholder, and director of several West Virginia businesses. In 1882, he was named by the Virginia General Assembly as a trustee of the Virginia and West Virginia Railroad Company. In 1889 he was an incorporator of the Alexander Boom and Lumber Company, and in 1890 he was both an incorporator and a director of the Patterson's Creek and Potomac Railroad Company. In addition, Clayton was a director of the People's Bank of Keyser. He practiced law until the year prior to his death, and died in 1915 at his residence in Keyser after an illness. Following his death, The Pittsburgh Post described Clayton as the "nestor" of the Mineral County bar.