Asbury Washington Saye was born May 19, 1829, in Hall County, Georgia, into a family with deep roots in the American South. The second child of William and Massey (Barnes) Saye, he grew up amid the significant transformations of nineteenth-century America. His ancestors were primarily Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who had settled in Georgia in the 1770s and 1780s, including his grandfather Christopher Gardner who served under General Washington during the Revolutionary War. Raised on family farms in Gwinnett and Cherokee counties, Saye received limited formal education in local subscription schools. He joined the Presbyterian Church in 1851 and later became a Cumberland Presbyterian minister. During the Civil War, he served briefly in the Confederate Army with a Mississippi regiment before being discharged due to poor health. He later served again in the cavalry for six months. Throughout his life, Saye worked variously as a farmer, schoolteacher, miller, and vocal music instructor.

His travels took him across Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. In 1855, he married Martha Jane Ricks, with whom he had several children. Though often in poor health, he outlived many contemporaries, including his younger brother George who died in the Civil War. In 1896, at his son's urging, Saye began documenting family stories and historical recollections. Despite his modest self-assessment as "an old cornfield man," his memoir reveals a keen observer of history with a remarkably precise memory and strong opinions about the events he witnessed. His writing provides valuable firsthand perspectives on frontier settlements, encounters with Native Americans, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the technological changes that transformed the South during his lifetime. Saye completed his manuscript in 1899 while living in Texas. He died in 1908, having witnessed America's evolution from a frontier republic to an industrial nation.