San Joaquin County
Biographies
JIREH PERRY ASHLEY
JIREH PERRY ASHLEY, a rancher
of Douglass Township, near Linden, was born in Massachusetts, April 2, 1830, a
son of Jireh and Sarah (Clark) Ashley. The father, born in Massachusetts in
1802, became a farmer and lived to be eighty-four years old. Grandfather Thomas
Ashley, the son of an English emigrant, but born, it is thought, in
Massachusetts, lived to be over eighty years old, and his wife, Hannah, was
about seventy years old when she died. Grandfather James Clark, born about
1775, was living in 1845, but the date of his death is not known. The mother of
J. P. Ashley died April 4, 1841, comparatively young; and the boy soon went to
work for a neighbor, with whom he lived four years. At the age of fifteen years
he went to sea, and followed that way of life some six years.
Early in May, 1850, he arrived in San
Francisco, one of a company of eleven owners of the schooner Jupiter, of New
Bedford, Massachusetts, in which they made the voyage. They then came to
Stockton, and the vessel made one voyage to Marquesas Islands. Mr. Ashley spent
the winter of 1850-’51 in Stockton, mostly occupied in hunting. The company
went to the mines in Tuolumne County. About February, 1851, he went to
Mokelumne Hill, remaining until July. Being taken sick he sold out his interest
in the company with the intention of returning to the East. Meeting an old
shipmate in San Francisco he was induced to go into the business of freighting
lumber from Oregon to San Francisco, and made only one successful trip, the
vessel and cargo being lost on the second trip in 1852. Mr. Ashley returned to
Stockton, and went to work as a cook in a boarding house at $100 a month,
remaining about one year. He bought a restaurant in 1853, in partnership with
another, but made no money, and gave it up after one year. In 1854 he owned a
couple of pleasure-boats, which he let by the hour. In 1855 he went to Tuolumne
County, and served a few months as a cook in a miners’ boarding-house, when he
again returned to Stockton and found a situation as cook in the Massachusetts
House, where he served one year. In 1856 he went to butchering for wages in
Stockton, and worked in that line three years.
In 1859 Mr. Ashley came to Linden, and
went into the butchering business on his own account, which he followed about
twenty-five years.
September 2, 1860, he was married in
Stockton to Miss Celia Cox, born in Enniskillen, Ireland, in 1831, a daughter
of Michael and Bridget (Corrigan) Cox, both deceased. Mrs. Ashley came to
America in 1849, and to Linden, California, July 8, 1859.
Since relinquishing the butcher business
in Linden Mr. Ashley has been farming on his ranch of 137 acres adjoining that
village. He has a small orchard and vineyard for home use, but his chief
marketable product is wheat.
Mr. and Mrs. Ashley have had four sons, of
whom three are still living, viz: Thomas Henry, born June 13, 1861, is a
farmer, and lives with his parents; James, born December 16, 1862, is a clerk
in Linden; John, born October 28, 1864, died April 14, 1877; Charles, born
April 6, 1867, is also a clerk in Linden.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 654-655. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
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