Rash's Surname Index
Notes for John ASHMEAD
Master of a privateer during the Revolution.
Capt. John Ashmead, son of John and Ann (Rush) Ashmead, born in Germantown, Philadelphia, September 29, 1738, became identified with the sea-going trade from the port of his native city at an early age, and before attaining his majority went as super-cargo of a merchant vessel to St. Croix, West Indies, and from that time followed the sea until incapacitated for its hardships by old age. He became a captain before the breaking out of the Revolution, during that struggle, was Captain of the brigs "Mars" and "Eagle" of Pennsylvania, and was also appointed naval constructor by the Continental Congress, 1776. He was a skillful and daring mariner and a tactful disciplinarian, and became famous as a naval commander. After the close of the Revolutionary War, he was captain of the "India" and other famous Indian merchantmen, and made many voyages to European and Asiatic ports. During the last years of his life he was senior warden of the port of Philadelphia. He died in Philadelphia June 6, 1818, having lived and served his country through two Colonial Wars, and through both wars for independence.
Capt. John Ashmead married, 1760, Mary, born 1743, died May 18, 1814, daughter of Benjamin Mifflin, and niece of Gen. and Gov. Thomas Mifflin. In the commonplace book of his first cousin Dr. Benjamin Rush, it is stated that in 1800, Capt. Ashmead stated to his cousin that over thirty of the forty years of his married life had been spent upon the sea, some of his trips consuming seven and eight months. In this book is also found Capt. Ashmead's epitaph, written by himself many years before his death, which, as revised shortly before his death, is as follows:
"In Life's hard bustle on the troubled seas, Thro' many storms and many a prosperous breeze, Thro' winter's blasts and summer's sultry sun, From frigid to the torrid zone I've run, In ninety voyages thro unnumbered toils, I've sailed above five hundred thousand miles. Being taken, foundered, and oft cast away, Yet weathered all,--in this close port to lay, Where a dead calm my weary bark doth find, Obliged to anchor for the want of wind."
A later revision cut off the last two lines, and added in their place:
"Where undisturbed my dust it shall remain, Till the last trump calls up all hands again, And what new perils I may then go through No human reason ever yet could show, But the same power which led through earth and sea, Will doubtless lead me through eternity."
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