Henry Graham Ashmead
Henry Graham Ashmead was an American historian, journalist, and chronicler of Delaware County, Pennsylvania. His History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania is one of the classic texts of southeastern Pennsylvania history.
Life and career
Ashmead was born in Philadelphia on June 30, 1838. His parents were John Wayne Ashmead, a successful lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and Henrietta Graham Flower. His maternal great-grandfather and namesake, Henry Hale Graham, was the first presiding judge of the Delaware County Courts of Common Pleas. Both his parents were of English descent. Ashmead attended West Chester Academy in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and Saunders' Institute in West Philadelphia. As a boy, he met Edgar Allan Poe, and as a young man, he was a friend of Frank R. Stockton, who named a character in his Christmas story "Major Pendallas" after Ashmead.Ashmead read law in his father's New York office and gained admittance to the New York bar on November 29, 1859. He practiced law briefly alongside classmate Leon Abbett, a future governor of New Jersey, but abandoned his legal career because of ill health, on the advice of his physicians. He later "embarked in outdoor uncongenial occupations in which he was unsuccessful". After his father died in 1868, he accompanied his mother to her hometown of Chester, Pennsylvania, where he embarked on a career in journalism and public history. He worked as a reporter and editor for the Chester Daily News and later the Delaware County Republican. In 1882, he became secretary of the Pennsylvania Bi-Centennial Association of Chester. In 1885, President Grover Cleveland appointed him to the office of postmaster of Chester.