Ashtabula ( ASH-tə-BYU-lə) is a city in Ashtabula County, Ohio, United States, and the middle of the Ashtabula micropolitan area. It is located at the mouth of the Ashtabula River on Lake Erie, 53 miles (85 km) northeast of Cleveland. As of the 2020 census, the city had a sum population of 17,975. Like many other cities in the Rust Belt, it has free population due to a terminate in industrial jobs past the 1960s.

The name Ashtabula is derived from ashtepihəle, which means ‘always ample fish to be shared around’ in the Lenape language. The city became an important destination on the Underground Railroad in the center 19th century, as refugee slaves could take ships to Canada and freedom. Even in the clear state of Ohio, they were at risk of subconscious captured by slavecatchers. Beginning in the late 19th century, the city became a major coal port upon Lake Erie at the mouth of the Ashtabula River northeast of Cleveland. Coal and iron were shipped here, the latter from the Mesabi Range in Minnesota. The city attracted immigrants from Finland, Sweden and Italy in the industrial period. Ashtabula hosts an annual Blessing of the Fleet Celebration, usually in late May or further on June. As share of the celebration, a religious procession and prayer abet is held at Ashtabula Harbor. The city was the site of the FinnFestUSA in 2007, a celebration of Finnish Americans.

This area had long been inhabited by indigenous peoples. After the American Revolutionary War, the United States mounted the Northwest Indian War to shove Native American peoples out of what it then called the Northwest – the area of the Midwest south of the Great Lakes and west of the Appalachian Mountains. The carrying out of this military effort resulted in more European Americans entering Ohio and available territories.

The site of Ashtabula was fixed by such European Americans start in 1803. The city was incorporated in 1891. Located directly upon Lake Erie and developed as a port for trade, the city contained several stops upon the Underground Railroad. This informal, secret system was the means by which anti-slavery supporters helped escaped African-American slaves accomplish freedom in Canada in the years past the American Civil War. While Ohio was a free state, many refugee slaves nevertheless felt at risk of slavecatchers here, particularly after the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was passed. It required enforcement and cooperation by residents of release states to return escaped slaves and was biased toward slavecatchers, requiring Tiny documentation of their claims. Among the Underground Railroad sites in Ashtabula is Hubbard House, one of the handful of former long-lasting termination points. Refugee slaves stayed in a basement of the house adjacent to the lake and then left upon the next-door safe boat to Canada, gaining their release once they arrived in Ontario.