{"id":3915,"date":"2026-06-26T20:00:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T00:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3915"},"modified":"2026-06-26T08:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T12:07:07","slug":"a-witness-to-history-the-frontier-life-of-captain-william-asher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3915","title":{"rendered":"A Witness to History: The Frontier Life of Captain William Asher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The early settlements along the Watauga and Holston Rivers in what\u2019s now Tennessee were the very beginning of &#8220;The Wild West.&#8221; While names like Daniel Boone, John Sevier, and William Bean filled the history books, another man was standing right beside them at nearly every major turning point\u2014yet his story has been lost to time.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nIn this episode, suggested by one of our listeners, Steve and Rod tell the story of Captain William Asher.\u00a0 One of the first to arrive in the Watauga settlement, Captain Asher served as a Patriot in the American Revolution, fought the Chickamauga, established fortified stations on the frontier and guided surveyors as they headed west, only to meet a sudden, tragic end while hunting deer near his home at Bean Station.<\/p>\n<p>If you like our stories, make sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for listening!<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_9759\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3915-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72701326\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72701326\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72701326\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72701326\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3915-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72701326\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The early settlements along the Watauga and Holston Rivers in what\u2019s now Tennessee were the very beginning of &#8220;The Wild West.&#8221; While names like Daniel Boone, John Sevier, and William Bean filled the history books, another man was standing right beside them at nearly every major turning point\u2014yet his story has been lost to time. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[318,739,83,13],"tags":[1019,104,1795,1794,1219,1785,1800,1781,1802,88,1793,1801,1792,1803,1786,1804,1797,1796,1805,1784,882,813,878,1790,1199,1067,889,514,1799,1789,1787,1788,1791,1798,880,1783,1782],"class_list":["post-3915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-settlers","category-the-1780s","category-the-1790s","category-the-appalachian-frontier","tag-william-bean","tag-appalachian-history","tag-ashers-station-big-creek","tag-ashers-station-gallatin","tag-battle-of-kings-mountain","tag-bean-station-history","tag-buffalo-ridge-baptist-church","tag-captain-william-asher","tag-cumberland-gap-history","tag-daniel-boone","tag-daniel-smith-surveyor","tag-dillion-old-dill-asher","tag-dr-thomas-walker","tag-early-american-frontier","tag-evan-shelby","tag-family-tree-history","tag-grainger-county-history","tag-hawkins-county-history","tag-hidden-history-mysteries","tag-holston-river-history","tag-isaac-shelby","tag-john-sevier","tag-overmountain-men","tag-richard-henderson","tag-state-of-franklin","tag-stories-of-appalachia","tag-sycamore-shoals","tag-tennessee-history","tag-tidence-lane","tag-transylvania-land-purchase","tag-treaty-of-long-island-1777","tag-treaty-of-sycamore-shoals","tag-walker-line-survey","tag-washington-county-tn-history","tag-watauga-association","tag-watauga-petition","tag-william-asher"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-119","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3916,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915\/revisions\/3916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}