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Note: a (Bradley) Ash, natives of Canada, who married and settled in Niagara Co., N. Y., where Mr. Ash, senior, was born May 25, 1800, and died Nov. 9, 1839. His widow, after his death, was married to Joseph Cardinal, moved to Osceola County, and died in Lincoln Township, April 18, 1880. By her first marriage she was the mother of three children, and by the last, of two, namely: Joseph W., Elizabeth A., Hiram L., Huldah C. and George D.,-in the order here named.
Mr. Ash, the first of the above mentioned children, was born July 22, i830, in Niagara Co., N. Y., and received his education mostly in the common schools of his native State. When he came of age he learned the trade of carpenter and joiner, which he followed until the year 1868. In 1853 he came to Michigan and settled in DeWitt, Clinton County, and a year afterward he removed to St. John's, that county; and three years still later he went to Kansas with an emigration company, where, in company with several others, he laid out the village of Geneva, Kan. After remaining with them about a year, he returned to Niagara Co., N. Y., and a year later to St. John's, Mich., where he resided until 1868. Then he came to this county and took possession of 80 acres of land in Ashton, under the provisions of the homestead laws. It was the east half of the southeast quarter of section 4, which is now the principal portion of the site of the village of Ashton. He platted the town in company with Simeon Vanakin and Spencer Preston. In 1875 he purchased 80 acres of land on section 6, where he has since lived and at present has about 40 acres in a good state of cultivation. As a man of executive talent and well adapted to serve his fellow citizens in a public capacity, Mr. Ash has been entrusted with the office of Supervisor eight years, and that of Sheriff of the county in 1871-2. He has also taken an active and prominent part in all the educational interests of his cornmunity. In all matters pertaining to the welfare of the neighborhood, township and county, he is consulted by those who know him, with great confidence in his foresight and judgment. He has also held the office of Notary Public for a period of eight years, and from 1875 to 1880 he was President of the Osceola County Agricultural Society. He was Postmaster at Ashton from 1872 to 1876. Politically he is identified with the Republican party, and religiously with the Methodist Episcopal Church, as is also his wife.
He was married in Lewiston, Niagara Co., N. Y., July 3, 1853, to Eliza A. Leggett, daughter of Elijah Leggett, who was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. She was born in Porter, Niagara Co., N. Y., April 6, 1835. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Ash are seven in number, namely: Zoa E., George F., Mabel (who died in infancy), Glen E., Della A., Eddie E. and Alta M.
From Portrait and Biographical Album of Osceola County, MI, etc; Chapman Brothers, Chicago, 1884, p 251-2
Note: BIOGRAPHY: Joseph W. Ash, farmer, section 6, Lincoln Township, is a son of George and Mahal
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