The Civil War in North Carolina



Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina and Eminent North Carolinians

Bookmark and Share



Supreme Court of Georgia; (e) Mary, married to William Alston of Waccamaw, South Carolina, whose son, Joseph Alston, was Governor of South Carolina, 1812-1814, and married Theodosia, daughter of Aaron Burr; (f) William, lost at sea on a privateer, during the Revolution; (g) A'Court; (h) Anna. None of General Ashe's sons left issue.

        II. Governor Samuel Ashe, was born on the Cape Fear, 1725; educated at Harvard; studied law with his uncle, Samuel Swann; became an early, active and zealous adherent of the cause of the colonies; appointed by the Provincial Congress, one of the Council of Thirteen to govern the State, before the adoption of the Constitution, and acted as its president; Speaker of the Senate, 1777, and one of the three judges first chosen under the Constitution. He remained on the bench until 1795, when he was elected Governor, which office he filled three terms. He died in 1813. He married, first, Mary, (daughter of John Porter who was one of the incorporators of the town of Wilmington, who when an infant in 1711, was rescued by his mother, a daughter of Governor Lillington, from an Indian then in the act of dashing his brains out against the house), by whom he had (a) John Baptista, (b) Cincinnatus, and (c) Samuel.

        After the death of his first wife, he married Elizabeth Merrick, by whom he had several children, only one of whom, Thomas, arrived at maturity; (a) Colonel John Baptista Ashe, just mentioned (also see page 204) served throughout the war of 1776, was Lieutenant Colonel of the North Carolina line; Speaker of the House 1785; Member of Continental Congress 1787; and of the United States Congress; elected Governor in 1802, he died however, before qualifying. He married Miss Montford, a sister of Mrs. Wilie Jones, whose famous repartee to Colonel Tarleton will long be remembered. Their son Samuel Porter Ashe married Mary, a daughter of Colonel William Shepperd--issue, John B. and Stephen.

        (b) Cincinnatus was lost at sea in a privateer with his cousin William.

        (c) Samuel, born 1763, entered the army at the age of sixteen, captured at Charleston, with General Lincoln; suffered terribly on prisonship; after exchange served with Lafayette and afterward with General Greene. He died in 1835; he married Elizabeth, a daughter of Colonel William Shepperd--issue, (a) Betsy, wife of Owen Holmes, (b) Mary Porter, wife of Dr. S. G. Moses of St. Louis, (c) John B., Member of Congress from Tennessee, who married Eliza Hay and moved to Texas, (d) William S., born 1813--died 1862, Member of Congress, 1849-55; married Sarah Ann Green, and had Samuel A'Court (News Observer, Raleigh), John Grange and others, (e) Thomas married Rosa Hill, (f) Dr. Richard Porter of San Francisco, married Lina Loyall, (g) Susan, married to David Grove, (h) Sarah, married to Judge Samuel Hall of Georgia.

        Thomas (the son of Governor Samuel Ashe and his second wife, Elizabeth Merrick) married Sophia Davis and had issue: (1) Pascal Paoli, who married Elizabeth Strudwick, a daughter of Colonel W. F. Strudwick by Martha, the sister of Colonel William Shepperd, and had many descendants, among them Dr. William Cincinnatus Ashe of Alabama; Hon. Thomas S. Ashe (see page 6) of the Supreme Court of the State, and Dr. Edmund F. Ashe of Wadesboro. (2) Richard, who married Anna Moore and left issue: Richard J. Ashe of California. (3) Thomas, who married Elizabeth, sister of Admiral Bell, United States Navy, who left issue resident in Alabama.

        III. Mary, born 1723, married George Moore and left issue.

        General John Ashe (born 1720--died 1781) son of John Baptista, and his wife, Elizabeth Swann, was born at Gravely, Brunswick county, in 1720. His education was liberal and was, it is believed, finished at an English University.*

        * A Memoir of General John Ashe of the Revolution, by A. M. Hooper and Griffith McRee, Wilmg. 1854.


Page 301 of 471
Index - Contents
Featured Books & CD-ROMS