“Having preserved these printed papers I will not further write of those days but rather will begin about the time I left school in July, 1846, going first as errand boy to Mr. Robert Thornely becoming afterwards his apprentice in Silk Hat Finishing on October 1st, 1847.†(Ashley p.1).
“My Father, at that time and ever afterwards, declared that he paid the account in the office at the mills, but as the receipts could not be produced a distress was put in the house and the furniture sold- at least so much as to meet the miller’s claim†(Ashley p.2)