Sutter-Yuba County Biographies

J. A. ASHLEY

Transcribed by: Kathy Sedler

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

 
An enterprise of which Sutter County may well be proud is that of the Ashley 
Manufacturing Company, whose proprietor, J. A. Ashley, is widely and well known. 
 He established the concern in 1898, commencing in a very modest way, thinking 
to employ a blacksmith only now and then; and now he is the head of a staff of 
general machinists who, using the most modern equipment, and profiting by a 
valuable experience, are able to offer the highest standard of quality and 
workmanship at the lowest consistent prices.  Mr. Ashley was born on a farm in 
what is now Willard, Huron County, Ohio, and served an apprenticeship with the 
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, starting at seventy cents a day, then getting 
eighty cents, than ninety cents, and finally a dollar, meanwhile boarding 
himself.  His parents were Homer and Jane (Star) Ashley.  Grandfather Joel 
Ashley went from Boston to Huron County, where he was one of the early settlers. 
 Homer Ashley died aged sixty-five years.  Mrs. Ashley is still living, at the 
age of ninety.
J. A. Ashley attended a rural school in Ohio, and first came to California in 
1883.  For a time he was chief engineer for the Star Milling Company.  In 1898 
he formed the company, now more than locally famous, of which he is the 
proprietor.  Since then he has applied himself so closely to its affairs that he 
took his first vacation only two years ago.  The company employs as high as 
twenty-two men.  He built an orchard truck of convenient design, and over 500 of 
them are in use here, while others have been shipped to Oregon and even to 
Australia.  The plant makes meat-safes and clothes bars, and has gone into the 
extensive manufacture of ladders, turning out, from 1912 to 1914, from eight to 
ten thousand a year.  These ladders are made for all possible purposes.  The 
company specializes in brush-burners, making them in different sizes, and 
mounted either on wheels or on skids.  Another specialty is a brush-rake made up 
in various sizes to suit different conditions.  The type and construction are 
the result of practical experience.  The Ashley Manufacturing Company has built 
up an enviable trade, catering to the wants of the orchardist and grower with 
such useful articles as check fillers, orchard trucks, steel dipping tanks, 
all-steel weed cutters, improved brush-burners, ridgers and ridge-breakers, 
dipping cranes and baskets, spreading tables and turn-tables, dry-yard trucks, 
auto-type axles, steel, iron and bronze supplies, leather and rubber belting, 
and hardwood lumber, and also a new patent fruit-dipper.
In Yuba City, Mr. Ashley was united in marriage with Miss Emma Van Dorn, a 
native of Yuba County, and a gifted woman who has been of the greatest service 
to her husband in the attainment of his ambitions.  Mr. and Mrs. Ashley have 
three children.  Byron is in charge of his father�s ranch; Carmel, a graduate of 
San Jose Normal School, in a teacher in Yuba City; and Russell is with his 
father in the shop.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p 1066