Ashe County, North Carolina
| Ashe County, North Carolina | ||
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Ashe County Courthouse in Jefferson
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 Location in the U.S. state of North Carolina |
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 North Carolina's location in the U.S. |
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| Founded | 1799 | |
| Named for | Samuel Ashe | |
| Seat | Jefferson | |
| Largest town | Jefferson | |
| Area | ||
| • Total | 429 sq mi (1,111 km2) | |
| • Land | 426 sq mi (1,103 km2) | |
| • Water | 3.1 sq mi (8 km2), 0.7% | |
| Population | ||
| • (2010) | 27,281 | |
| • Density | 64/sq mi (25/km²) | |
| Congressional district | 5th | |
| Time zone | Eastern: UTC-5/-4 | |
| Website | www |
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Ashe County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population was 27,281. Its county seat is Jefferson.
Historical evidence shows that Ashe county was inhabited by Native Americans, which included the Cherokee, Creek, and Shawnee tribes. Pieces of broken pottery, arrowheads, and other Native American artifacts have been found, indicating their presence. Most of these artifacts have been found in the Old Fields area of Ashe County.
The earliest Europeans to explore Ashe County were Bishop Augustus Gottlieb Spangenberg – head of the Moravian Church in America – and his associates, Timothy Horsefield, Joseph Mueller, Henry Antes, Johan Merck, and Herman Loesch. Bishop Spangenberg wrote about his journey in Ashe in a diary that has been preserved by the Moravian church. He was given 100,000 acres (400 km2) in Virginia as a place for his fellow Moravians to settle. The only one of Spangenberg's group to return and permanently settle in Ashe County was Herman Loesch. Other early settlers were David Helton, William Walling, William McLain and Daniel Boone, the famous pioneer. With the exception of Boone, these men and their families all settled in Ashe in 1771.
During the Revolutionary War one skirmish was fought in Ashe County. It is called the "Battle of the Big Glades". The battle was fought in July 1780 between a force of Americans, led by Captain Robert Love, and a force of 150 British Loyalists on their way to Charlotte to join Lord Cornwallis, the British commander in the Southern colonies. The Americans won the skirmish.
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