The son of Thomas Ashton, and Sarah Eleanor Mills,who died on September 3, 1850 -- John was left in the care of his maternal grandmother Jane Mills.
On the 27 day of June 1851, in the Morris Phelps Company, the Ashton family started for the valley of the mountains. Great Grandmother Mills walked most of the way and carried baby John on her hip. They arrived in Lehi, Utah on 6 October 1851, where they met grandfather, John Mills who had come to Utah the previous year (1850).
Great Grandmother and Great grandfather Mills came to Provo in January 1852. John was reared by them and on account of this was known as John Mills. After his marriage he went by his own name of John Mills Ashton.
Provo was practically just beginning when father was a young man, and being of an ambitious nature, he did his part in road building, making of canals, and getting logs from the mountains for building and for fuel.
During the Black Hawk Indian War, he enlisted and was stationed as a dispatch carrier. When the Indian War veterans were given their pensions, the government came and interviewed father and through him many of the men received their pensions along with him. It wasn't much but helped in their later years.
He had good oxen to work with and when the St. George Temple was being built, he was called in 1874 to go labor on it. He drove his oxen there and worked on the temple until it was completed. Once he was at the temple and heard an amateur band play music that to those listening sounded as if they were inspired of God, for they had never played so perfect before.
John worked at farming and many other things; on construction jobs, at various places, for the Telluride Power Company at Olmstead and Nunns. He worked for the first Gas Company that came into Provo. He was night watchman for the Provo Round House and at one time herded sheep in Rock Canyon. In his younger years he was a barber and barbered everyone in the neighborhood.
He would go with his horses and wagon to the canyons and be gone two or three days or more getting a big load of poles to use for fences, and logs to use for our fuel, as everyone those days had wood burning stoves to cook on and heat their house in winter. How we did love to get into the grub box to find a molasses cookie or two that had been brought back from the trip.