Thomas Williams Ashley was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and was descended from several old Deerfield families. Tom was an excellent student and an accomplished athlete, first at Deerfield Academy and then at Amherst College in nearby Amherst, Massachusetts, where he graduated in 1916.

After college he volunteered for the Marine Corps and was quickly promoted to second lieutenant. He would be the first of Deerfield’s young men to lose his life in The Great War. He was only twenty-four when he was killed at Chateau-Thierry, France, on June 6, 1918. The death of this engaging and promising young man devastated his family and community.

At a ceremony dedicating an honor roll of all Deerfield’s servicemen, a speaker said of Thomas Ashley that he was “the best known and best loved of all Deerfield’s boys. Patriotic, loyal, true blue, he died as we would have him with his face to the foe . . . the name and character of Thomas Ashley of Deerfield will go down in history as a beacon and guiding star for the boys of this community for generations yet unborn.” The American Legion post in the village of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, bears his name.