number of other descendants, including James Ashley IV, a portraitist living in Chicago. Ashley was a Freemason, belonging to the Toledo Lodge No. 144 in Toledo, Ohio. Early political activism In 1848, the burly six-foot tall youth settled in Portsmouth, Ohio, where he became a journalist—first at the Portsmouth Dispatch and later editor of the Portsmouth Democrat. The following year, 1849, he was admitted to the Ohio Bar but did not practice. Instead, by 1851, abolitionist activities caused Ashley and his wife to flee north to Toledo, Ohio to avoid prosecution under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. There, Ashley opened a drug store (which was soon burned down) and also became involved in the new Republican Party, campaigning for its presidential candidate John C. Fremont and congressman Richard Mott. James Ashley was an active abolitionist who traveled with John Brown's wife to Brown's execution in December, 1859, and reported the event in the still-extant local newspaper, the Toledo Blade. In 1858, he led the Ohio Republican Party. As the year ended, Ashley was elected to U.S. House of Representatives of the 36th United States Congress, and took office the following year. Congressional career Ashley served in the United States House of Representatives from 1859 through 1869, representing Ohio's 5th congressional district for two terms (1859–63) and Ohio's 10th congressional district for three terms (1863–69). While in Congress (the 37th through 40th sessions), Ashley served as the Chairman of the Committee on Territories, and was instrumental to the creation (naming and borders) of the territories of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Washington. He also authored the Arizona Organic Act. However, he opposed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and especially polygamy, and limited Utah's boundaries to reduce Mormon influence. During the American Civil War, Ashley took an active role in supporting the recruitment of troops for the Union Army. He also became a leader among the Radical Republicans, writing a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia in 1862. In 1863 he introduced a bill to create a constitutional amendment to end slavery which ultimately (with Ashley as House Majority floor manager) passed in the House, exceeding the needed a 2/3 margin by merely 2 votes on January 31, 1865. This was ultimately ratified as the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, formally abolishing slavery in the United States. Ashley suspected President Andrew Johnson, who succeeded