Samuel Ashe (1725-1813)

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Samuel Ashe (March 24, 1725 – February 13, 1813) was the Anti-Federalist governor of the U.S. State of North Carolina from 1795 to 1798.

Ashe was born in Beaufort, North Carolina. His father, John Baptista Ashe, had been Speaker of the North Carolina Colonial Assembly, or House of Burgesses. Ashe became an orphan at the age of 9. He married Mary Porter in 1748; they had three children, including John Baptista Ashe, who would serve in the Continental Congress. After Mary died, Ashe remarried, this time to Elizabeth Merrik.

Ashe studied law and was named Assistant Attorney for the Crown in the Wilmington district of the colony.

He became involved in the revolutionary movement and served in the North Carolina Provincial Congress, in the Halifax Congress and as a member of the North Carolina militia. In 1776, he was elected to the new North Carolina Senate and was elected its first speaker. He was also appointed to the committee that drafted the first North Carolina Constitution. The following year, Ashe was appointed presiding judge of the state Superior Court; a post he held until 1795.

In 1795, the General Assembly elected him governor at the age of 70. He served three one-year terms, the maximum constitutional limit, before retiring in 1798. Ashe continued to remain active in politics after his term as governor, serving as a member of the Electoral College in 1804.

Ashe County and the cities of Asheville, North Carolina and Asheboro, North Carolina are named in his honor.

In World War II the United States liberty ship SS Samuel Ashe was named in his honor.

[edit] Sources

Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789-1978, Robert Sobel and John Raimo, eds. Westport, CT: Meckler Books, 1978. (ISBN 0-930466-00-4))
North Carolina Government 1585-1979, A narrative and statistical history, Thad Eure-Secretary of State, North Carolina Department of Secretary of State-Raleigh, North Carolina.
Samuel Ashe on Find-A-Grave