1663 "David Ashly & Hannah Glover were married by mr Gilbert Novemb: 24th 1663" in New Haven, Connecticut. [1]
1671 In the fall of 1671 Mr. Edward Taylor, recently graduated at Harvard College, was invited by the inhabitants of Westfield to come there and preach to them. He states in his diary, "This being the 2d [1st?] of December, we came to Westfield. ... We went to Mr. Whiting's. There the men of the town came to welcome me, and after supper I went to Goodman Ashley's, where I was till Mr. Whiting had got his house ready that I might be with him." [2]
1718 David Ashley died on December 8 and was buried in Westfield, Massachusetts. [3]
1722 Hannah, wife of David Ashley, died on June 7 and was buried in Westfield, Massachusetts. [4]
Research Notes:
Trowbridge states, [5]
David Ashley settled in Springfield and lived there the first three years and a half of his married life. In 1661 grants of lands had been made to Captain Pynchon, Robert Ashley and George Colton at the new settlement then being made at Woronoco, now Westfield, and David Ashley eventually had his father's title confirmed to him. On February 8, 1663-4, David Ashley received a thirty acre grant at Woronoco, on condition that he and the other grantees were "to pay the Indians for their purchase within three years and that they go there to dwell." He was one of the original grantees of land on the Fort Side (Main Street) on July 6, 1666. This land was to be settled "in their own persons on the last of May next." He probably removed his family to Westfield in the spring of 1667. He lived near the confluence of Great and Little rivers, and styled himself "yoeman." In March, 1668, a division of territory was made into three parts, and lots cast for it, and David Ashley's lands fell in the first division. In March, 1669, Sacketts creek was granted to Joseph Whiting and David Ashley "to set a mill thereon and grind corn." ...
At a county court held at Springfield September 27, 1670, Walter Lee brought an action against David Ashley "for taking away from him 10 shock of his wheat last year and a load of Indian corn this year off the ground which he had plowed and sowed." This must have been a mistake on Mr. Ashley's part, as the parties agreed before the jury brought in their verdict.
David Ashley was one of a committee of three appointed to convey to the government at Boston the protest of the town against a letter dated March 20, 1676, advising that the town of Westfield be abandoned and the inhabitants retreat to Springfield for protection against the Indians, as the cost of maintaining the scattered settlements along the Connecticut River was considered too much. This was during King Philip's War.
On September 6, 1685, the town granted to David Ashley, Thomas Noble, Isaac Phelps and Nathaniel Weller liberty to erect a sawmill "on the brook on the northeast side of the river.
At a town meeting held November the 18, 1696, it is voted yt Left Samuel Root, Nathaniel Bancroft, Adijah Dewey and David Ashley should be as a commitey to prise all lands in Westfield, and stock all yt is above one year old, and yt all heads should bee apprised at ten pound pr head to defray town charges."
On June 9, 1712, towards the close of Queen Anne's War, the town voted to "fort" certain houses, and David Ashley's was one of those selected to be "forted."
David Ashley was prominent in the management of Westfield affairs and held a number of responsible offices. He served as a juror in 1665; he was elected a selectman in 1676, 1677, 1679 to 1685, 1694 and 1699; Clerk of the Writs in 1678, 1686 and 1690; and Treasurer of the town in 1694. He performed the duties of all these and other less important offices in a manner satisfactory to the town and creditable to himself, and was highly respected. He united with the Westfield church January 1, 1679-80, five months after its organization, and took the freeman's oath at a court held at Springfield on September 28, 1680.(*)
The gravestones of David Ashley and his wife are among the oldest in the old Westfield cemetery. They are short irregular slabs of native stone, and are so weather-beaten that they were deciphered with difficulty as follows:
DAVID
ASHLEY
DYED ON DES
YE 8 1718
AGED 77 YEARHANNAH
YE WIFE OF
DAVID ASHL
EY DYED ON
IVNE T-E 7 1722
AGED 76 YEAR.
[1] Vital Records of New Haven, 1649-1850, part 1 (Hartford: The Connecticut Society of the Order of the Founders and Patriots of America, 1917), 20, [InternetArchive], [GoogleBooks].
[2] "Diary of Edward Taylor," Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings 18 (1880), 4-17, at 17, [GoogleBooks].
[3] Find A Grave Memorial 6876379, [FindAGrave].
[4] Find A Grave Memorial 19592825, [FindAGrave].
[5] Francis Bacon Trowbridge, The Ashley Genealogy. A History of the Descendants of Robert Ashley (New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1896), 21-23, [InternetArchive].