William S. Ashe

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William Shepperd Ashe (August 12, 1813 – September 14, 1862) was an American lawyer and Democratic politician from North Carolina. He served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1849 to 1855, representing North Carolina’s 7th district (1849–1853) and then the 3rd district (1853–1855). In the 32nd Congress he chaired the Committee on Elections.

Born in Rocky Point, North Carolina, Ashe went to school in Fayetteville and studied at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He farmed rice and then became a lawyer, admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1836, and practiced in New Hanover County. He was active in the Democratic Party, served as a presidential elector in 1844, and was elected to the North Carolina Senate from 1846 to 1848. He later returned to the Senate from 1859 to 1861.

In 1854 he became president of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad Company, a job he held until his death. He also took part in national and state politics as a delegate to the 1860 Charleston Democratic National Convention and to the North Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1861.

During the Civil War he fought for the Confederacy as a major and then colonel, in charge of transportation between Virginia and the rest of the South. He died in a railroad accident near Wilmington, North Carolina, on September 14, 1862, at age 49, and was buried in a family cemetery in Pender County. He was married to Sarah Ann Green.