William Henry Ashley

William Henry Ashley (born 1778 in Powhatan County , Virginia , †  March 26, 1838 in Cooper County , Missouri ) was an American fur trader, entrepreneur and politician .

Life

Ashley moved to Ste. Genevieve in the part of Louisiana acquired by the USA from France in 1803 , which later became the state of Missouri. In 1808 he moved to St. Louis . During the British-American War of 1812 he was Brigadier General of the Missouri Militia. When Missouri became a state of the American Union, he was its first lieutenant governor from 1820 to 1824 .

On February 13, 1822, Ashley and his business partner Andrew Henry placed the following ad in the Missouri Gazette, the Public Advertiser, and other newspapers:

"For enterprising young men: The undersigned wishes to hire 100 men for a year, two or three years to climb to the source of the Missouri River [...]"

The men who answered the ad came to be known as Ashley's Hundred . William Ashley and Andrew Henry founded the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in St. Louis in 1823 . Several expeditions were undertaken along the Missouri River , the Yellowstone River to the Green River .

In 1824 Andrew Henry left the partnership. Ashley's new partner became Jedediah Smith . In 1825, Ashley organized the first rendezvous at the Henry Fork of the Green River. In 1826 William Ashley sold his shares in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company to his partners Jedediah Smith, David Jackson and William Sublette . William Ashley returned to the east and went into politics. He was from 1831 to 1837 Democratic MP for the state of Missouri in the US House of Representatives . William Henry Ashley died on 26 March 1838 at the age of 60 years at a pneumonia .

Web links

• William Henry Ashley in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)