Finding the Right Family

 

There is yet another particular street in my county which I knew was named after a pioneer settler—but which one, I forgot. Since I knew this settler would certainly be eligible for recognition as a First Families designee for our local genealogical society's program, I wanted to get that detail correct. However, there were several unrelated families possessing that same surname who all arrived in the earliest years of our county's history. As it turns out, finding the right family name will be a challenge.

The street is named Ashley Lane. Despite the mental image which might be conjured by the designation of this road as a "lane," the street winds its way for several miles across both residential areas and stretches of farmland to connect two different state highways. For that reason, it was hard to pinpoint just whose original parcel might have been the one lending the adjacent road its owner's name.

Since a good number of the several families named Ashley arrived during the early years of California statehood—some, as we've already noted, who came here following news of the gold rush—I began searching, one family at a time, to see whether descendants might have mentioned awareness of a heritage including having a road named after an ancestor. After all, we had already witnessed that with the Hildreth family we reviewed yesterday.

In the case of finding which Ashley family was honored by the street name, the answer is "not yet." So we'll spend a few days searching for more details. After all, each of the families I've reviewed so far are First Families eligible, so the study will be helpful on that one account.

Take, for instance, my original guess as to the correct subject: Jireh Perry Ashley from Massachusetts. Following the lines of his four sons in San Joaquin County, I soon realized none of them had any children who could claim the honor of becoming the namesake for that street.

However, among the members of the Pioneer Society at Stockton mentioned in the 1890 Illustrated History of San Joaquin County, California was a settler named William D. Ashley. In fact, when the California State Library assembled their "Pioneer and Immigrant Files" stretching from 1790 to 1950, there was a three-page entry for William Ashley. Not much was said in that 1890 book, other than that he was born in 1819 in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, and came across the plains to reach California in 1850. But by 1852, the book noted, William D. Ashley had purchased land in San Joaquin County.

Whether that parcel of land, eight miles from the city of Stockton, became the inspiration for naming the street we now know, I can't say. But I did find a few details about this family which merit a closer look. We'll continue that chase tomorrow.