Erwin Ashton
 | |
| Erwin Ashton | |
| Full name | Erwin Joel Ashton |
|---|---|
| Born | August 9, 1776 |
| Birthplace | Providence, Rhode Island |
| Died | 1836 |
| Place of death | Providence, Rhode Island |
| Spouse | Abigail Ashton |
| Children | Samuel Ashton Caleb Ashton |
| Sex | Male |
Erwin Joel Ashton is remembered as the progenitor of the Ashton line — the head of a Providence, Rhode Island merchant household whose sons would carry the name west a decade after his death. Born in Providence in 1776, he and his wife Abigail, née Kamp, kept their home in that city and neither of them ever left it; the westward migration that planted the Ashtons in Northern California belonged entirely to the next generation. Erwin died in Providence in 1836, while Briarmont was still no more than a small coastal settlement and long before any Ashton set foot in Hartwell County.
His importance to the town is wholly by inheritance. Through his two sons, Samuel and Caleb, both branches of the family — the prominent line of the Ashton Residence and the quieter working line that followed it — trace back to his Rhode Island household. He founded a name in a place he never knew existed.