Rebecca Hale Ashton
 | |
| Rebecca Hale Ashton | |
| Born | 1807 |
|---|---|
| Died | 1892 |
| Spouse | Samuel Ashton |
| Parents | Jonas Hale Charlotte Hale |
| Children | Clarence Ashton Edmund Ashton |
Rebecca Hale Ashton is the point where the Hale and Ashton lines first meet — a daughter of the founding Hale family, of Jonas and Charlotte Hale, who married Samuel Ashton and came west with him from Providence in the 1840s. Through her, Hale blood entered the Ashton line at its most prominent branch.
Her sons were Clarence — who rose through the Hartwell Timber Co. to Head of Operations and built the Ashton Residence — and Edmund, whose son Ward would one day give that house to Oakridge College. Rebecca thus stands as grandmother to the Ashtons of the Residence, the family that ran the town's timber machinery and left its name on the college. She lived through the whole rise of the Hartwell era, dying in 1892, long after the branch she founded had become one of Briarmont's leading households.