Chester Ashley

Chester Ashley was a lawyer and purchaser 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 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).