 | |
| Samuel Ashton | |
| Born | 1802 |
|---|---|
| Died | 1885 |
| Spouse | Rebecca Hale Ashton |
| Parents | Erwin Ashton Abigail Ashton |
| Children | Clarence Ashton Edmund Ashton |
Samuel Ashton was the elder son of Erwin and Abigail, and the man who led the Ashton family west from Providence, Rhode Island, in the 1840s — bringing the name to Northern California in the years before the Hartwell timber boom remade the region. With his wife Rebecca, of the founding Hale family, he settled the branch that would become the most prominent in Briarmont. Their marriage is where the Hale and Ashton lines first meet.
Through their sons, that branch took the family's place among the town's managing households: Clarence rose through the Hartwell Timber Co. to Head of Operations and built the Ashton Residence, while Edmund carried the line on to Ward, who would one day give that house to Oakridge College. Samuel lived deep into the height of the timber era, dying in 1885, the family he had brought west by then firmly established.