SAMUEL MAURICE MCASHAN, son of Elizabeth Agee and Nehemiah McAshan, was born in Buckingham County, Virginia, on March 11, 1829, and died January 5, 1904, in Houston. At the age of 18 he became a clerk in the store of Ward & Longcope, LaGrange. In 1855 he and his brother Paul opened a store in LaGrange, which remained open until the outbreak of the Civil War. He served as Fayette County Treasurer in 1858, finishing out his brother Edmund's term. During the Civil War, S. M. joined Capt. Webb's unattached Company stationed at Columbia. When ill health forced him to leave the company, he accepted a detail from active duty and reported to T. W. House to superintend the overland export of cotton and importation of guns. On April 1, 1864, he became bookkeeper in the mercantile establishment of T. W. House. After a year in this position he was made cashier of the banking department, and occupied this position for over thirty years. For more than 25 years he was treasurer of Shearn Methodist Church, superintendent of the Sunday School and leader of the newcomers Bible class. He constructed and donated the building for McAshan Methodist Church. "But the crowning characteristic of the life of the man now dead was the spirit of liberality that has marked almost every action. None ever applied to him for help and left unassisted. Frequently he was imposed upon, but he always explained; 'It is better to be fooled nine times than to turn away one man deserving of assistance.' ... It is as a philanthropist that he is known and honored as much as the successful man of affairs."(Galveston Daily News, Jan. 6, 1904) He was a member of Gray Lodge #329 and Dick Dowling Camp #197, U.C.V.
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McASHAN, SAMUEL M.
S. M. McAshan, the subject of this sketch, traces his ancestry to Scotch and French Huguenot origin, the McAshans, as might be surmised from the name, coming from Scotland; the Agees, from whom he is descended on his mother's side, from France. It was in the early settling of the country that each family took up its abode on this continent, securing a foot-hold in the colony of Virginia, where they became identified with the political, religious and social surroundings, and entered with zeal upon the new life spread out before them. With such experiences as they had had in their native countries, they could hardly be expected to do otherwise than align themselves with the colonists in their struggles with the crown and to contend on all proper occasions for an enlargement of their civil and religious liberties. All of the old stock, as family tradition has it, stood with the settlers in their "petitioning," "remonstrances," and other peaceful measures addressed to the throne before the final rupture; and when war came at last, those able for field service took up arms and fought with Marion, Washington and LaFayette, some of them sealing their faith in the cause of freedom with their lives. Those who thus served in the Revolution were John McAshan and John Agee, grandfathers of the subject of this sketch, and John Hall, his great-grandfather, the last named a surgeon of some repute. After the peaceful order of things had been restored, such of the ancestors of our subject as survived settled down to the pursuits of planters, which they quietly and successfully followed the remainder of their lives.
In Buckingham county, Virginia, which contained the old family seat of the McAshan family, Nehemiah McAshan, father of Samuel M., of this article, was born in the year 1783. He grew up in his native county, and at a proper age married Elizabeth Agee, born also in that county, in the year 1789. Some thirty years afterward, in 1844, Nehemiah and Elizabeth McAshan emigrated to Texas, and settled near La Grange, in Fayette county, where the former died two years later. The reason for their coming to this new country was to secure its many advantages for their large family of growing children, a purpose which the father lived to see only partially carried out, but which the mother was spared many years to assist in fulfilling. She died in 1872, at the advanced age of eighty-three. Both inherited to a considerable extent the qualities which had distinguished their ancestors, being industrious, home-loving, and God-fearing people, a trifle old-fashioned in their ways, but sound in the cardinal virtues of truth, benevolence, and that far-reaching faith that raises the humblest plodders to the dignity of spiritual kings and queens. Their household, like that of many old-time households, was a large one, being made up, from first to last, of sixteen children, - seven sons, and nine daughters, - fourteen of whom became grown. Nine of these accompanied them to Texas, most of the number marrying and settling here. Of this large family but one now survives, he whose name heads this article, though many grandsons, and granddaughters, and others of still remoter degree of relationship are scattered throughout the State.
Samuel M. McAshan was born in Buckingham county, Virginia, on the 11th of March, 1829. He was fifteen years old when his parents moved to Texas. He had attended an ordinary private school in his native county some four years before the removal West, and after the family settled near La Grange he attended school at that place another year. The education thus received was all he ever obtained. For a time he worked on a farm, and then, at the age of eighteen, became a clerk in the store of Ward & Longcope, at La Grange, which position he held eight years, when, in 1855, he engaged in business for himself, in partnership with his older brother, Paul, the firm opening a store at La Grange, which they conducted at that place up to the breaking out of the war. In 1863 Mr. McAshan came to Houston, and six months later, April 1 , 1864, he entered the employ of the late T. W. House, becoming book-keeper in Mr. House's large mercantile establishment. After a year's service in this position he was made cashier of the banking department, and this position he has occupied continuously since, covering a period now of thirty years. The large and varied interest, or combination of interests, represented by the name of T. W. House, banker, has been of gradual growth; and the construction of the machinery, as well as the formulation of the principles by which it is carried on, represents the labor of a number of hands, and the conceptions, in details at least, of more than one mind. While, therefore, all honor should be paid to the distinguished founder of the business, no one will deny that the subject of this article, as the head of the financial branch of the establishment, - that branch which, from time to time, has absorbed most of the others, - has had much to do with the making of its history and the achievement of its success. This is an acknowledgment which the present owners of the business cheerfully make, and is more a tribute to Mr. McAshan's worth than it is a plain and candid statement of the facts. Were figures necessary to emphasize the magnitude of the interests which have thus been committed to Mr. McAshan's care, they could easily be given. But these may be omitted in speaking of a business which is one of the oldest, largest and best known in the State of Texas. It will be sufficient to say that all the ebb and flow of this vast estate, its resources and indebtedness, receipts and expenditures, profits and losses, have found their way once a year, and in some departments many times in the run of a year, through the channels over which he watches, investments being changed, securities shifted, plans altered, and other things done involving hundreds of thousands of dollars upon balances made up under his direction and for which he alone is responsible. Some men seem to have been born for the positions which fall to them in life, while others seem to be fitted by pressure into the places they occupy. The subject of this sketch clearly belongs to the former class. He discharges the duties of his position with a degree of ease, uniformity and success which leaves no doubt as to his natural aptitude for them. To the common attributes of honesty and integrity, promptness and accuracy, are added in his case a memory remarkable for its clearness, a judgment eminently sound, and a facility in passing in rapid mental review the details of all the multifarious interests entrusted to his charge, that is as rare as it is indispensable in the handling of such interests. Certainly Mr. McAshan's mental and moral equipment is an exceptional one, and most certain it is, also, that his career is far removed from the ordinary kind. That he has never amassed wealth, although he has been associated daily with men of means, and has presumably enjoyed some opportunities, is in no wise to be set down against the usefulness of his example. He has subordinated consideration of self to his sense of duty, taking loyalty to those whom he has served in the fullest and broadest meaning as his guide. To the young man who has inherited an even temperament, who desires to live an industrious, orderly life, and who is not eaten up with the lust of Mammon, but sees sufficient motive for faithful application in a personal feeling of duty well done, here is an example that will be helpful, a career that is worthy of thoughtful consideration. Such careers are not entered of record every day, nor are they pointed to for imitation nearly as often as they might be. But that does not militate against their usefulness, nor lessen the obligation of the honest biographer to point them out when found.
On the 11th of August, 1855, Mr. McAshan married Miss Mattie R. Eanes, a daughter of James and Susan Eanes, then residing in La Grange, but originally from Cumberland county, Virginia, where Mrs. McAshan was born and chiefly reared. The issue of this union has been four children: James Everett; Samuel Earnest; Annie E., wife of R. H. Kirby; and Virginia K., wife of H. R. Du Pree, the two sons and youngest daughter being residents of Houston, and the other daughter residing in Austin.
Mr. McAshan and his entire family are members of the Methodist Church, in which denomination his parents also held a membership during the greater part of their lives.
Mr. McAshan has seen a great deal of the making of the history of Texas, and has been an interested spectator in all that has gone on around him. When he came to the State there was not a mile of railroad nor a telegraph line in it, no towns of any size, the population being confined mainly to the settlements along the larger streams, and to the few villages then started, in all, perhaps, not over 75,000 souls. Now the State is covered with a network of railroads, and the electric telegraph reaches every portion of the country; the land is dotted all over with towns and cities, and the total population of the State is near 2,500,000. He has witnessed all the marvelous changes which have taken place in this region during the past fifty years, and has lived long enough to know that Texas is destined to become the grandest State in all the American galaxy. Source: History of Texas Biographical History of the Cities of Houston and Galveston (1895),