 The county is also the site of numerous unincorporated communities and ghost towns.The county is named for Chester Ashley, a prominent lawyer in the Arkansas Territory and U.S. senator from the state from 1844 to 1848.The county is roughly divided into two halves by Bayou Bartholomew, with the rich, fertile, alluvial soils of the Arkansas Delta in the east, and the shortleaf pine forests of the Arkansas Timberlands in the west.