Chester Ashley was born on June 1, 1791, in Amherst, Massachusetts, to William Ashley and Nancy Pomeroy. Ashley attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He graduated from Williams in 1813. After Williams, he attended Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut as a member of the class of 1814. He moved to Little Rock, Pulaski County, Arkansas in 1820 where he married Mary Watkins Worthington Elliott in 1821. He was one of the first lawyers to settle in Little Rock. He became one of the wealthiest men in Arkansas because of his ownership of much of the land to become Little Rock. Ashley was elected to the United States Senate in 1844 and reelected in 1846. Ashley died on April 29, 1848, while still in office.

Sterling R. Cockrill was born in Nashville, Tennessee on September 26, 1847. He attended public schools In Nashville and the Georgia Military Institute at Marietta, Georgia. He volunteered for the confederacy at the age of sixteen. He graduated from Washington College in Lexington, Virginia from the law department of Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee. He began law office in Little Rock, Pulaski County, Arkansas in 1870. He married Ashley Freeman, granddaughter of Chester Ashley, in 1872. He was elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Arkansas in 1884 and served till 1893. He died on January 12, 1901.