The Ashley River is a blackwater and tidal river in South Carolina, rising from the Wassamassaw and Great Cypress Swamps in western Berkeley County. It consolidates its main channel about 5 miles (8 km) west of Summerville, widening into a tidal estuary just south of Fort Dorchester. The river then flows for approximately 17 mi (27 km) along the historical banks of the City of North Charleston before reaching peninsular Charleston. The much wider Ashley joins the Cooper River off the Battery in Charleston to form Charleston Harbor before discharging into the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2012 the land around the Ashley River (or in Ashley Barony, as the original land grant was called) is mostly undeveloped.
The river was named for Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury and chief Lord Proprietor of the Carolina Colony by explorer Robert Sandford. In 1675 Cooper was granted 12,000 acres (4,900 ha) of land along the river after a permanent settlement was made at Albemarle Point in 1670. This settlement was the “first permanent European settlement” in South Carolina and today Albemarle Point is known as Charles Towne Landing. The settlement would be moved to its current peninsular location across the river ten years later and is well known as Charleston.
