Joseph S. Ash - G.A.R., Bishop Post

Joseph S. Ash spent his early years in Paint Township, Holmes County, Ohio, part of the large family of Josiah and Nancy Ash.  His father was a rather well-to-do farmer, according to the 1850 and 1860 censuses.  In 1860, Joseph, at 14, was one of ten children at home.

On March 5, 1865, he enlisted as a private in Company F, 19th Ohio Infantry. His time of service was mainly spent on garrison duty in eastern Tennessee, then New Orleans, and finally Texas.  He mustered out about a month before the rest of his unit at San Antonio, Texas in September, 1865

In 1866, he married Jane Swan and together they had five children: Ida, Olive, Emmet, Carry, and William Ohio, as listed on the 1900 census.  Joseph was a miller by trade and he traveled around while honing his craft before settling in at Defiance, Ohio.  In 1870, the family was in Sandyville, Tuscarawas County, and the 1880 census enumerator found the family in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County.

By 1900, he and Jane (also called Jennie) had moved into a house at 682 Jefferson Street with Edith (another name for one of the daughters) Gayman, 32, a widow, and her two children, Florence and Edmond, and Joseph's son, William Ash, 24, a machinist.  Joseph was a miller, in fact, the head miller at the Defiance Mills (also called the Maumee Valley Mills).  He became head miller in July, 1895, when the former head miller, John Heale, returned to Quincy, Illinois, according to one of the local newspapers.

In 1901, The Defiance Weekly Express reported on May 16: 
"Ernest Eitnier and a young man named Roehrig are having a hearing before Squire Costello this afternoon on a charge of assault and battery preferred by Joseph S. Ash, head miller of the Defiance Mills."  No follow up on this case could be found.

In May, 1901, also, Mrs. Jane (Jennie) Ash passed away from the "grippe," a term for influenza.

 By 1910, Joseph had left his home and moved in with Clyde and Florence Manchester at 802 Second Street.  Joseph, 64, was listed as a boarder.  Sometime between 1910 and 1920, he pulled up stakes in Defiance and went to Portland, Oregon, where two of his children had settled.  In 1920, he was enumerated on the census with his son, William, 43, and wife, Marie, and their two daughters in Portland, Oregon.

Joseph S. Ash died on January 28, 1922, at the age of 76 and was buried at the Multnomah Park Cemetery in Portland, Oregon.  A short funeral notice appeared in The Sunday Oregonian, Portland, Oregon, on January 29, 1922:

"ASH.  At 104 Holland Street, January 28, Joseph S. Ash, 76 years, father of Cora Stephens and W. O. Ash of Portland, E. H. Ash of Warren, Pennsylvania, and Mrs. Edith Bayman of Defiance, Ohio.  Funeral services will be conducted Monday, January 30 at 2 p.m. in the Grace Evangelical church, Sixth Third Avenue and Ninety Second Street Southeast.  Friends invited.  Interment Multnomah Cemetery.  Remains are at the funeral parlors of A. B. Kenworthy & Company, 5802-04 Ninety Second at Southeast in Lents." 

 (This is part of a series on Civil War veterans of Defiance County who were part of the G.A.R., Bishop Post, that headquartered in the city.  Formed in 1879, the post was named after a local man, Captain William Bishop, Company D, 100th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Army who died as a result of wounds received in battle.  The veterans' photos are part of a composite photo of members that has survived.  If you have other information or corrections to add to the soldiers' stories, please add to the comments!)