When William Hickman Ashburn was born in July 1855, in Fentress, Tennessee, United States, his father, Robert Wesley Ashburn, was 43 and his mother, Henrietta Smith, was 18. He married Sarah Jane Shillings on 19 May 1877, in Roane, Tennessee, United States. They were the parents of at least 7 sons and 4 daughters. He lived in Tennessee, United States in 1870. He died in 1928, in Fentress, Tennessee, United States, at the age of 73, and was buried in Clarkrange, Fentress, Tennessee, United States.