San Diego County Biographies

J. MARION ASHER

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
J. MARION ASHER, the San Diego County Assessor, is a native of Adams County, 
Illinois, and was born April 24, 1833. His great-grandfather, a resident of 
Kentucky, was a pioneer of that State and was a captain of volunteers. He was 
killed in a battle with the Indians of the land where Louisville now stands. His 
son, William Asher, born in Kentucky, was a farmer and mill owner. He owned and 
built the oldest mill now standing in Kentucky, located about eight miles above 
Louisville. He removed to Hancock County, Illinois, where his death occurred in 
1838. Bartlett Asher was the oldest son of William Asher, and was born in 
Kentucky, November 29, 1800. He was a surveyor and farmer. In 1830 he was 
married to Miss Elizabeth Button, daughter of Mr. Thomas Button, of Virginia, 
who was born in 1811, and the result of this union was a family of seven 
children of which Mr. Asher is the second. He had few early school advantages. 
When he was seventeen years of age he went to school three months to a good 
teacher in Lee County, Iowa, and with him got his best of educational start. He 
has devoted his whole life to study and is eminently a self-made man. He took a 
course of study in Bryant & Stratton�s Commercial College in St. Louis. He then 
took to school-teaching and after several terms of teaching he engaged in 
clerking in a store. Here he had a chance to handle bank notes and he became an 
expert counterfeit-detector, and it was on this account that he was employed in 
the bank of George C. Anderson, in Keokuk, Iowa, where he held the position of 
teller for eighteen months. He then accepted a position as book-keeper in a 
whole sale grocery and commission house for Stafford & McCune. In 1858 he came 
to San Diego, then went to the mines, where he remained a year and a half when 
he returned to St. Louis and engaged with a wholesale house for a year and a 
half. He then returned to California in 1861 and landed at San Francisco. From 
there he went to Washington Territory, and British Columbia where he remained 
four years, most of the time in the employ of the Government as inspector, 
deputy and acting collector of customs. In August, 1865, he was appointed an 
Internal Revenue officer, in which position he continued for two years, when he 
took the position of commercial reporter for the San Francisco Daily Times. He 
then received the appointment of cashier of the San Francisco & San Jose 
Railroad, in which capacity he overworked, his health became impaired and he 
resigned. In 1869 he came to San Diego, when he bought and improved the place in 
Paradise valley, which he afterward sold to Mrs. E. A. Brewster. Mr. Asher was 
the pioneer nurseryman of this part of the State and did much to develop the 
capability of the country. He helped to organize the Horticultural Society of 
San Diego County and is still its president. He resided in the city of San Diego 
from 1872 to 1881, when he moved with his family to their very pleasant home and 
ranch at El Cajon, where they now reside, his sons conducting the place. After 
coming to San Diego he was deputy collector of customs and inspector of customs 
for five yeas. In 1885-�86 he was Public Administrator, and in the years 
1887-�88 and 1889 he held office of county Assessor. Mr. and Mrs. Asher are both 
members of the Baptist Church, which he assisted in building and of which he has 
been a trustee for two years. He is also a trustee of the Pioneer Society of San 
Diego County, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and president of the San 
Diego County Produce Union. He has been a member of the Masonic fraternity for 
twenty-five years and is a Knight Templar. He was married in San Francisco, July 
3, 1867, to Miss Sarah H. Clark daughter of Benjamin and Dorcas Clark, formerly 
of Toronto, Canada, at which place she was born in 1844. They have a family of 
eight children: Robert H., born in San Francisco, March 24, 1868; Josephine M., 
born in San Diego, January 17, 1870; Alpheus R., born in Paradise valley, 
February 13, 1872; Mary E., born in Paradise Valley, April 20, 1874; Annie 
Brewster, born in San Diego, July 2, 1876, Josephus M., Jr., born in San Diego , 
October 15, 1878, Dorcas B., Born in El Cajon, March 24, 1884, and Charles Z. 
born in El Cajon, January 28, 1886.
 
An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San 
Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower 
California, from the Earliest Period of Occupancy to the Present Time.... - 
Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. pp 259-260