| ASHE, William Shepperd, (brother of John B. Ashe of Tennessee, nephew of John B. Ashe of North Carolina and cousin of Thomas S. Ashe), a Representative from North Carolina; born in Rocky Point, N.C., September 14, 1814; attended school at Fayetteville, N.C., and pursued classical studies in Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.; engaged in the cultivation of rice; studied law; was admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1836 and commenced the practice of law in New Hanover County, N.C., the same year.
Candidate for Presidential Elector (D-NC) 1844.
State Senate (D-NC) 1846-1848.
U.S. Representative (D-NC) 1849-55; chairman, Committee on Elections (Thirty-second Congress).
President of the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad Company from 1854 until his death; again a member of the North Carolina senate 1859-1861; delegate to the Democratic National Convention at Charleston in 1860; member of the North Carolina Constitutional Convention in 1861; during the Civil War served as a major in the Confederate Army, in charge of all transportation from the South to Virginia; killed in a railroad accident near Wilmington, N.C., September 14, 1862; interment in the family burying ground at ‘The Neck,’ near Ashton, Pender County, N.C.
[Link] | 
