Excerpt of the book "Writer and Engraver's Picture of Graham County's Progress Since Its Organization" (1906)

John Ashcroft

(pages 37-38)

What greater mark of esteem and confidence can the citizens of a community show to one of their fellow men then to elect him to a county office.

The office of sheriff requires a man of undoubted integrity and more than average courage.

Mr. Ashcroft never sought an office prior to the campaign of 1904, but was a prosperous and contented Graham county farmer. He has made an enviable record as one of the most efficient officers Graham county has ever had; one who could not be bluffed out of doing his duty.

Mr. Ashcroft owns a fine farm of 320 acres 18 miles southwest of Hill City. This farm is conveniently arranged and fitted for a first-class stock farm and is also well adopted to general farming and grain raising.

It is all fenced and cross fenced and has an abundance of good water. For five years Mr. Ashcroft has had one-hundred acres in wheat averaging a yield of twenty bushels to the acre. He says with the exception of one year he has raised for the last ten years enough corn to fatten twenty-five to thirty-five head of hogs for market besides a goodly number for home use.

Mr. Ashcroft is a great admirer of good horses and purchased for the Hill City Horse Co., a fine English Coach Stallion, Glen S., which took second prize at the St. Louis fair. He is now managing a breeding stable.

Mr. Ashcroft homesteaded in Graham county in the autumn of 1884. It took several years of hard and constant work to get money to improve his farm. He was married in 1893 and has a family of 5 children.

During his term of office Mr. Ashcroft lives with his family in their ten roomed house, in the south part of town, but intends to return to his farm at the expiration of his term.