Bassett Family Association - , Modern Founder (originally founded in 1897)

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Introduction to the History of the Bassett Family Association

"In the beginning" - there was a reunion. Parts of the history will be in the June 2007 newsletter, which will get copied here in this section of the website. We aren't sure how much of the history will ultimately be included (the document is 40 pages long) but as a start is the introduction below and the newspaper article that appears in the Journal and Courier of New Haven, 10 Sep 1897.

You can now click on this link to see covers from the early Bassett family reunions.

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This report, to the members of the Bassett Family of America, of the proceedings of the meeting held at the United Church Chapel, 302 Temple Street, New Haven, Conn., June 17th, 1897, and also of the reunion which was held at West Haven, Conn., September 9th, 1897, is, I trust, merely a preface to what will be in the future. The reunion was a grand success, there being present Bassetts from Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut. And all those that were present echo the same sentiment, that the occasion was one that will be remembered through life, as the meeting for the firest time of so many members of this great family.
There were descendants present from the following immigrants:

William, who came on the ship Fortune, 1621
Thomas, who came on the ship Christian, 1634
William who came on the ship Abigail, 1635
John, who came to New Haven, Conn., 1642-3

About six years ago I undertook the ardous task of searching for my ancestry, and at the end of the first year I found I had accomplished but very little. I wrote to different members of the family, but received very few responses to my letters, and I thought, Waht does this mean? Have the Bassetts of today lost all pride int their name and family, or have they so degenerated that they are ashamed to let themsleves be known? This I could not believe. I attributed their seeming neglest to the fact that they knew very little about their ancestry, and that sentiment which should inhabit the human mind must be slumbering, and that something must be done to awaken it to the realizing duty that it owed to the present generation, as well as generations to come, by placing upon record the history of the members of this great family before the facts are obliterated by time and neglect, for many of the old records of our New England towns are in very bad condition, and if something is not done before long to preserve them, they will be forever lost. Now, let us gather together while there is yet time, those fragments of facts, and with them erect a monument more lasting than stone, a record of just and upright lives.

Frank G. Bassett