captured by pirates and stayed as a castaway on uninhabited Roatan Island in the Bay of Honduras for 16 months in 1723/1724. His memoirs about his solitary stay (published in book form in Boston in 1725) were not believed by everyone; some people believed the book was a novel in the style of Robinson Crusoe. However, unlike Robinson Crusoe, Ashton was genuine; he was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1702 and married twice in his lifetime.
