[2][3] Ashley's sack was given to Middleton Place, in Dorchester County, South Carolina, one of the nation's preeminent slavery-era plantation sites.

According to Tracey Todd, vice president of the Middleton Place Foundation, the sack is a rare material artifact from a period in United States history when human slavery was legal.

It was viewed by thousands of museum visitors, including Central Washington University sociocultural anthropologist and museum-studies professor Mark Auslander, who has since traced the history of the sack to identify Ashley, her mother Rose, and the author of the needlepoint, Ruth.

[6][7] In the research article he published in 2016, Auslander uses census reports, wills, newspaper announcements of court decrees, and inventory records to reconstruct their history.

The historical chains of remaining evidence suggest that Ashley and her mother Rose were owned by a wealthy Charleston merchant and planter, Robert Martin (c. 1790–1852), who was worth over $300,000 at his death in December 1852 (equivalent to $10,990,000 in 2023).

[9] My great grandmother Rosemother of Ashley gave her this sack whenshe was sold at age 9 in South Carolinait held a tattered dress 3 handfulls ofpecans a braid of Roses hair.

Told herIt be filled with my Love alwaysshe never saw her againAshley is my grandmotherProfessor Mark Auslander's research yields the following timeline (most dates are approximate).