Colusa Biographical Sketches.
CHAPTER XII.
CAPTAIN WILLIAM ASH.
William Ash was born in Devonshire, England, in 1826. He comes of several generations of Devonshire farmers. He was the youngest of fifteen children, and passed his infancy and youth in his native place acquiring such educational training as the local schools supplied. He worked on the paternal acres and also acquired a serviceable knowledge of the carpenter's trade by the time he had reached his eighteenth year. He left England in 1843 and alone and unaided began the struggle of life, first in Philadelphia, where he found employment at his trade. He worked subsequently in Augusta, Georgia, and at other places on the Atlantic seaboard. In 1852 the gold fever lured Mr. Ash and landed him in San Francisco with just two dollars in his pocket. He journeyed to Mendocino County, worked there in a saw-mill and saved his money, a neat sum, and now when he felt that he had sufficient capital to engage in business on his own account, the bank which held his deposits failed and he found himself penniless again. He found work at his trade in Marysville and was a building contractor there till 1859, when he went into the teaming business on an extensive scale, carrying on operations through Northern California, Idaho and Oregon. He and his party were in the Northwest during the Indian outbreak in that region. The difficulty of securing supplies on the Northwestern frontier was fraught with danger, and to Mr. Ash belongs the credit of having made the pioneer trip from Nevada into Idaho.
The railroad having been completed across the continent, Mr. Ash turned from the freighting business to become a farmer. He came to Colusa County in the spring of 1869, and, having a large drove of stock, he engaged to farm a piece of land for another party. In 1870 he rented two thousand acres of land and planted part of it to grain. His crop was a failure and as all of his available means were sunk in the undertaking, his plight was not a desirable one. Undismayed, he secured financial assistance, put in another crop and from that time can date the beginning of a prosperous career as a farmer.
Mr. Ash owns three thousand six hundred and eighty-five acres of land, but farms over five thousand acres, over one-half of which is planted in grain. At his home place he resides in a handsome residence, surrounded by magnificent shade trees, where, in the bosom of a happy family, he dispenses unstinted hospitality. He is the father of three children living.
In politics Mr. Ash is a pronounced Republican, and is frequently called upon by his party to permit the use of his name on its ticket. On him seems to rest the honor of leading a forlorn hope in a county so almost hopelessly Democratic, but Mr. Ash accepts the task as a duty, and in every campaign, though defeated, the returns show the preference and high esteem entertained for him all over the county by his friends and neighbors. As a political opponent of his once remarked, "If Captain Ash were only a Democrat, there would not be ten votes in the county cast against him."
COLUSA COUNTY
ITS
HISTORY TRACED FROM A STATE OF NATURE
THROUGH THE EARLY PERIOD OF SET-
TLEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT,
TO THE PRESENT DAY
WITH A
DESCRIPTION OF ITS RESOURCES, STATISTICAL
TABLES, ETC.
ALSO
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PIONEERS AND
PROMINENT RESIDENTS
by Justus H. Rogers
Orland, California
1891
Page 343-465
Transcribed by: Linda Diane Jackson 7/5/2009
Colusa County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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