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These excerpts from Frederick Howe's History of the Town of Ashfield include information about one of the town's earliest residents. Heber Honestman was an African American man enslaved in Easton, Massachusetts. On May 4 1737, Heber Honestman, a “free Negroman” purchased “one sixty-third part of one right” in Ashfield, at that time called "Huntstown," from Josiah Pratt of Norton for £20 and agreed to “perform all the condition the sd. Josiah Pratt is obliged to do towards the settling of sd township.” 

Heber and his wife, Susanna, may have left Easton as early as 1740, when he sold his property there to Josiah Pratt. In June 1743, Heber purchased for £12 the 50 acres adjacent to his initial lot from Richard Ellis. A stone wall still marks the western boundary of the lot where Heber built his house.