| Notes |
- David Bassett gave Susan half of his land and Martha the other half.
Susan had a hard life. She had to live through the deaths of two husbands and
three children and then died herself in the very early years of her only
children to survive childhood. Her first husband died in the winter of 1856.
Her baby daughter died in the spring of 1861. Her second husband died in the
fall of 1861. All three probably died from malaria. Then, just a year later
her only two living children died on the same day, some say from malaria and
some say they were killed by Union soldiers. During the Civil War Susan lived
on the farm with her mother, Jane, and her sister Martha. They had to raise
their food and survive the ravages of the war without the help of either
slaves or men-folks. Her father and her first husband were both dead, and the
second husband died in the early part of the war. Her brother was in the
Confederate Army and so was not at home. These women were very tough and
greatly to be admired for surviving.
After the war, Susan met A.D. Littler, a Sargeant in the Union Army
from Findly, Ohio. He had driven a team of oxen from Little Rock to the area
in 1866. He settled in Hot Springs where he operated a small general store in
the vicinity of the present Arlington Hotel and was the first United States
Postmaster of Hot Springs after the Civil War. Then he met and married Susan
and moved to Lawrence Station, a stage stop. There he had a small store and
post office on the main road to Malvern and at the side of the first narrow
gauge railroad track into Hot Springs. That railroad was called The Diamond
Joe. He called his little store "Shanghi City Still Ahead". Susan and Angus
had two children, but unfortunately, Susan did not live to see them raised.
When she died, she and Angus had been married only six years. Charles was five
and Maggie was only two. They lived in a log cabin with only the fireplace to
heat it. After her death, Angus stayed on at the store and raised his son,
Charles. He made moonshine and is reported to have sold some to Jessie James.
There was a community of northern people nearby called Sulfur because of the
healing potash sulfer spring and Angus Littler liked to take his fiddle and
play for the dances that were held there. He married (2) a very sweet woman
named Vicey. He had a pension because of having had his legs frozen during the
Civil War. Angus and Vicey had a little barn down on the creek with a cow and
some chickens and Vicey would go down there and feed the animals. There was a
ladder up the side of the barn into the loft. One day Vicey climbed up to get
some hay and fell out. After her death, and after Maggie and Robert married,
Angus moved into the back of his little store, just about 100 ft. from the log
home where Margaret and Robert lived. He lived to be 100 years old, dying 4
Oct 1926. The last two years of his life he moved into the house with Maggie
and her family.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1834 - 1873 (38 years)