He was the son of Edward Chilton and Katherine Chilton, whose maiden name is unknown. By that time his father had died. If his father was the E. The date and circumstances under which Chilton moved to Virginia are otherwise unknown.
As salary for the latter office he received 10, pounds of tobacco in the spring of , about half the annual sum that the governor had recommended. His duties included preparing formal documents for the Council, acting as intermediary in official communications between the two houses of the assembly, recording land patents, and carrying out other clerical responsibilities. On two occasions he helped preserve the public records of Virginia. Chilton acquired a significant amount of land, beginning with two acres in Jamestown in the spring of During the next two years in partnership with other men he obtained grants for more than a thousand acres of land in New Kent County, and in he patented more than a thousand acres in Surry County.
He also acquired and sold other tracts elsewhere and practiced law. In referring a client to Chilton in January , the planter and lawyer William Fitzhugh d. The date on which Chilton married Hannah Hill is not recorded. They acquired 2, acres of land from her father and are not known to have had any children.
On October 20, , Chilton took office as attorney general of Virginia, succeeding Edmund Jenings , who had become a member of the Council on June 4 of that year. The loss of the records of the General Court leaves information concerning his service as attorney general scarce. Copies of two of his opinions survive in manuscript.
One, issued on October 30, , specified procedures that the Middlesex County justices should follow in a case involving a slave, and the other, dated June 23, , limited the authority of justices of the peace to admit to bail persons charged with major felonies. With his service in a high office in the government of the colony, a marriage that connected him to its leaders, and possession of a growing landed estate, Chilton appeared well established in Virginia, but on January 8, , he registered a power of attorney authorizing his father-in-law to take charge of his property in Virginia and Maryland.
