Samuel Ashe (March 24, 1725 – February 3, 1813) was the ninth 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, and brother, John Ashe, both served as 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 and as a member of the North Carolina militia. For a little more than one month in 1776, Ashe served as president of the Council of Safety, the state's executive authority. He was also appointed to the committee that drafted the first North Carolina Constitution. In 1776, he was elected to the new North Carolina Senate and was elected its first speaker. 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 United States 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.
Ashe's grandson, William Ashe, was a Confederate soldier in the American Civil War, and a son of John B. and Eliza (Hay) Ashe. He was killed at Shiloh in 1862, a battle in which William's brother, Samuel Swann Ashe, also fought. [1]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Cornelius Harnett |
President of the North Carolina Council of Safety 1776 |
Succeeded by Willie Jones |
| Preceded by Richard Dobbs Spaight |
Governor of North Carolina 1795 – 1798 |
Succeeded by William Richardson Davie |