During the 1800s land boom, Gerald Ashton and his brother Frank Ashton came to the Narcoosssee English Colony and settled in Runnymede. Frank started the little town of Ashton, where he had a wood rack three miles south of Narcoossee and supplied wood for the steam powered trains on the Sugar Belt Railroad. Gerald had a lumber yard and also furnished wood for the trains and Hamilton Disston's sugar mill boilers. The current area around the intersection of Narcoossee Road and US 192 is called Ashton and was named after the Ashton family. Later, this area was joined by the Shaker Colony. Near this location, the religious sect known as the Shakers purchased 7000 acres from the Disston Land Company in 1896 and named it Olive Branch. They farmed this land successfully and shipped pineapples, bananas, citrus, and vegetables through the Sugar Belt Railroad. Since one of their beliefs was celibacy, their membership dwindled to nothing and the colony disappeared in 1924.