Colonel William Preston (December 25, 1729 – June 28, 1783) played a crucial role in surveying and developing the western colonies, exerted great influence in the colonial affairs of his time, enslaved many people on his plantation, and founded a dynasty whose progeny would supply leaders of the South for nearly a century. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses and was a colonel in the militia during the American Revolutionary War. He was one of the fifteen signatories of the Fincastle Resolutions.