Chester Ashley
Chester Ashley (1791-1848) was a pioneer Arkansas lawyer, U.S. Senator,
Ashley was a wealthy landowner in the state owing in part to his purchases of New Madrid certificates to Little Rock public lands granted by the federal government to settlers relocated after the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812. Ashley was not an original holder of certificates, but instead purchased them from speculator William O'Hara in April 1821. O'Hara's certificates were at the center of a legal dispute with rival claimant William Russell, who derived his claim from first settler William Lewis. Ashley eventually lost the case in June 1821 in the Superior Court of the Territory of Missouri. Many of the town's buildings created by the New Madrid certificate holders were pulled several blocks to land not owned by Russell.
Ashley practiced law with Robert Crittenden and George Watkins in the 1820s. He served as counsel to John Bowie in the infamous matter of the Bowie land claims, and as director of the Bank of the State of Arkansas. Ashley also owned a number of slaves. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1844 after the death of William S. Fulton, and served until his death in 1848.
Ashley granted land for the establishment of Little Rock's Mount Holly Cemetery, the so-called "Westminster Abbey of Arkansas," as well as to the Diocese of Little Rock for the establishment of the Old French Church (now the Cathedral of St. Andrew's). Ashley County bears his namesake.
Personal life
Ashley was born to William Ashley and Nancy Pomeroy on June 1, 1791, in Amherst, Massachusetts. His family relocated to Hudson, New York, in 1797. Ashley attended Williams College in Massachusetts, graduating in 1813. He completed a law degree at Litchfield Law School in Connecticut in 1814. Ashley practiced law in Hudson, N.Y. and Edwardsville, Illinois, before moving to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1820. He married Mary Watkins Worthington Elliott in 1821. The Ashley family lived in a mansion on Markham Street between Cumberland and Scott streets.
References
- U. M. Rose, "Chester Ashley," in Publications of the Arkansas Historical Association vol. 3 (Fayetteville, AR: Arkansas Historical Association, 1911), 47-73.
