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- Erskine Birch Bassett was a colonel in the Kentucky National Guard. He owned a dry goods store in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1887, and was the founder of the local Chamber of Commerce, and served as Commissioner of Western State Hospital.
1870 Federal Census of Stephensport, Breckenridge County, Kentucky (11 Jun 1870)
J.H. Bassett - 37 - M - Kentucky - Farmer 1500 5000
G.A. - 37 - F - DC - Keeping House
Mary - 19 - F - Kentucky - At School
Julia - 16 - F - Kentucky - At School
G.A. - 13 - F - Kentucky - At School
R.J. - 11 - M - Kentucky - At School
Tryphena - 9 - F - Kentucky
J.H. - 7 - M - Kentucky
E.R. - 4 - M - Kentucky
E.B. - 3- M - Kentucky
Col. Erskine Birch Bassett
Col. Erskine Birch Bassett was born in Stephensport, Kentucky on June 23, 1867. He was the eighth of ten children born to James Hervey and Georgiana Houston Bassett. His paternal grandparents were Jeremiah Vardiman and Tryphena Birch Bassett and his maternal grandparents were Dr. Robert and Mary Frank Houston. He was named for his great-grandfather, Thomas Erskine Birch, who fought with John Paul Jones in the Revolutionary War and was an Anglican priest and later a teacher in Virginia and Kentucky. Col. Bassett's ancestors came to Kentucky shortly after the revolution and settled in Mason County. The Bassetts lived in what is now Bracken County and later moved to Harrison and then Breckinridge Counties. In 1877 Col. Bassett's family moved to Louisville and he was educated in the local public schools.
In June, 1887, Bassett moved to Hopkinsville, and opened a dry goods store here. He was the first merchant to introduce modern advertising methods and Bassett & Co. was to become one of the leading retail stores in the city.
The newly arrived merchant took an active part in public life in Hopkinsville. In April, 1888, he helped organize and was elected president of Hopkinsville's first business organization, the Commercial Club. He was one of the founders of the present Chamber of Commerce and wrote its constitution.
As Commissioner of Western State Hospital he built the system of waterworks for the institution without cost to the state was responsible for the installation of the refrigerating plant there. He was a Regent of Western State Normal College, a leader in the Republican party and a member of the Methodist Church.
In addition to his civic activities Col. Bassett also had a long and distinguished military career which began in Louisville in 1883 when he joined the famous Louisville Legion. After he moved to Hopkinsville he joined Co. D. of the Kentucky State Guard. After his Spanish War services he was appointed by Gov. Beckham to the rank of Major in the 3rd Kentucky Infantry and took an active part in quelling many of the civil disturbances that broke out in the state. He was largely instrumental in breaking up the activities of the "night riders" who brought a reign of terror to the western part of the state. For his services he received the thanks of Gov. Willson by public proclamation and was promoted to Lt. Col. On Nov. 10, 1910, he was named Acting Adjutant General of Kentucky and in that capacity he reorganized the 1st Regiment at Louisville and established an officer's training school for the National Guard.
After serving in the Mexican border incident he was promoted to full colonel and sent overseas in World War I where he was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French and recommended for a full generalcy. After the war, Col. Bassett returned to civilian life and was elected the first Commander of the local American Legion Post.
Col. Bassett died of a heart attack on March 10, 1945, and was buried with full military honors on March 19 at Riverside Cemetey.
Col. Bassett was married to Hallie Elizabeth Brown from Louisville and they had five children: James Stanley, Walton Cross, Estelle (Mrs. Henry Edwin Morton), Margaret and Elizabeth Murray (Mrs. William Whitfield Radford). Descendants who are still living in Hopkinsville are Margaret Morton White (Mrs. Harvey O'Neal White), Jonathan Carter White and Judge Edwin Morton White and his children Nicholas Bassett and Amelia Carter White.
Robert J. Bassett
(From History of Kentucky)
Robert J. Bassett - Back of every commercial and industrial undertaking of the country is to be found the banking institutions of the communities in which they are located, and consequently each man, woman and child in the United States is dependent upon these financial concerns for daily support. Were the banks to be wiped out of existence such a condition of chaos would reign as to beggar description. Business cannot be carried on without the backing, co-operation and approval of the banks; if business stops the employe is without work and his employer is without profit. The farmer has no market for his produce, so stops shipping, and the railroads no longer maintain their regular schedule. The country reverts to a worse condition than that prevailing before it was developed through civilizing influences, and the work of the ages is rendered nil. Such a condition will not prevail, there is no danger of that, but it is only just for the public to realize the importance of the banking institutions and their officials who keep them what they are. There are few communities in the country with any pretention to business importance which do not have one or more of these constructive forces at work in their midst, and in the case of Leitchfield, the county seat, there are naturally several of them. One of the leading institutions of this kind in the county is the Grayson County State Bank of Leitchfield, of which Robert J. Bassett is the president, and in his dignified and capable handling of its manifold affairs proves his ability as a financier and justifies his associates in their choice of him as the presiding official.
Robert J. Bassett was born at Stephensport, Breckinridge County, Kentucky, a son of James H. Bassett, grandson of Jeremiah Vardiman Bassett, and a member of an old family of Delaware, from whence his great-grandfather came to Kentucky and settled in what was then Bracken County, but is now Robertson County. Here he was engaged in farming, being one of the pioneers of his neighborhood. He had thirteen sons and one daughter. Jeremiah V. Bassett was born at Bassett's Ridge, in what is now Robertson County, Kentucky and died in Missouri. He was reared in Robertson County and spent the greater part of his life at Cynthiana, Kentucky, where he was a pioneer merchant. Active in politics, he was an ardent Whig. He married a Miss Birch, a daughter of Judge James Birch.
James H. Bassett was born at Cynthiana, Kentucky, in 1829, and died at Leitchfield, Kentucky, in 1913. Reared at Cynthiana, he moved in young manhood to Breckinridge County, Kentucky, and was there married and began farming, in which calling he attained to an enviable degree of success. His political convictions made him a Democrat. He married Georgia Houston, who was born in Washington, District of Columbia, in 1830, and died at Leitchfield, Kentucky, in 1905. Their children were as follows: Mary S., who in the widow of J.H. Kenny, a dentist, resides at Leitchfield; Julia, who resides at Louisville, Kentucky, is the widow of C.C. Chick, formerly a merchant of Leitchfield; Georgia H., who resides at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is the widow of Samr. R. Dent, formerly a merchant of Leitchfield; Robert J. whose name heads this review; Enna, who married W.F. Gregory, of the city department of Louisville, Kentucky; James H., who was with the Hegan Company of Louisville, Kentucky, died at Lynchburg, Virginia, when forty years old; Edmund R., who was a banker, died at Louisville in 1917,; Erskine B., who is a merchant of Hopkinsville, Kentucky; Florence, who died at Leitchfield, was the wife of J.Y. Johnson, formerly a merchant of Paducah, Kentucky, but now a resident of Saint Louis, Missouri, where he is employed by the City Railway Company; and Dr. Frank H., who is a physician and surgeion of Hopkinsville.
Robert J. Bassett attended the rural schools of Breckinridge County, and then became a student of Saint Mary's College at Lebanon, Kentucky, where he remained for one year, leaving this institution in 1877. At that time he embarked in a mercantile business at Cave City, Kentucky, and reamined there until 1883, when he came to Leitchfield and established a general store, but later confined his stock to hardware and implements. Subsequently he incorporated this business with himself as president, and it is now the leading store of its kind between Elizabethtown and Princeton, Kentucky, and he still continues at its head. In 1904, Mr. Bassett entered the field of finance as cashier of Grayson County State Bank, of which he was made president in 1911, and this position he still holds to the entire satisfaction of the stockholders and general public. This is one of the strong financial concerns of this part of the state and was established in 1886 as a state bank. The officials of the bank are as follows: R.J. Bassett, president; E.B. Tilford, vice president; Gayle Praithen, cashier; Aubrey Moorman, first assistant cashier; and J.C. Pickerill, second assistant cashier. The bank has a capital of $25,000; a surplus of $18,000, and deposits of $500,000. This bank occupies a modern brick building on the northeast corner of the Public Square. Mr. Bassett is also president of the Grayson County Supply Company, which he incorporated, and served as a member of the Kentucky State Board of Agriculture for fifteen years. He owns a modern residence on West Walnut Street, where he maintains a comfortable home. In politics he is a republican. The Baptist Church holds his membership and he is serving it as a deacon.
In 1881 Mr. Bassett married at Leitchfield Miss Hattie Moorman, a daughter of Lemuel and Martha (Worthman) Moorman, both of who died recently. For many years Mr. Moorman was a farmer of Grayson County. Mr. and Mrs. Bassett have two sons, W.M. and Carroll B. W.M. Bassett is a physician and surgeon of San Antonio, Texas, and a veteran of the World war. He was graduated from the Hospital College of Medicine at Louisville, Kentucky, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine, and was engaged in a general practice at the outbreak of the late war. Like so many of his profession, he volunteered, was commissioned a major and was overseas in France for nearly a year. Carroll B. Bassett is also a resident of San Antonio, Texas, where he is engaged in business as a dealer in automobile tires. He, too, served during the late war. Sent overseas to France, he served there for about a year and received his commission as a first lieutenant. President Bassett is one of the sound and dependable me of Grayson County, and one who has closely identified himself with its growth in many directions. He is proud of the progress which has been made and that he has been able to be so constructive a force in his community.
Frank H. Bassett
History of Kentucky Volume V
1922
Frank H. Bassett, M.D. From the earliest period of statehood to the present the Bassett family has been a prominent one in the western counties of Kentucky. Several of the name have lived in Hopkinsville, which is the home of Dr. Frank H. Bassett, formerly a merchant of that city, in later years a practicing physician, and now the vigorous and capable mayor of the city.
Doctor Bassett, was born at Stephensport, Kentucky, November 1, 1872. His paternal ancestors were Welsh and Colonial Americans. His grandfather, Jeremiah Vardeman Bassett, was born in 1797 at Cynthiana, Kentucky, this date establishing the fact that the family's settlement in Kentucky was some years before the close of the eighteenth century. Grandfather Bassett was a saddler by trade, spent most of his active life at Cynthiana, but finally moved out to Northwest Missouri and died at Plattsburg in 1887. His wife, Tryphenia Wellesley Birch also died at Plattsburg, in 1889.
James H. Bassett, father of Doctor Bassett, was born in Cynthiana in 1828. He spent his early life in his native town, and after his marriage in Breckinridge County lived on his farm there for a number of years. He was a graduate of Transylvania College at Lexington, and on leaving college went to work in the Louisville post office and some years later, in 1877, he returned to Louisville and again resumed work in the post office. That was his business connection until 1890, when he was appointed postmaster of Parkland, now part of the City of Louisville. He held that post of responsibility four years, and then removed to a farm in Grayson County, and was active in the agricultural affairs of that vicinity until his death, which occurred near Litchfield in 1914. He was a staunch Democrat of the old school. James H. Bassett married Georgia Houston, who was born in Washington, D.C., in 1832 and died at Litchfield in Grayson County, Kentucky, in 1904. She was closely related to the same family that produced Sam Houston, a governor of Texas. Her mother, Mary (Frank) Houston, was the State of Georgia's official flower girl delegated to strew flowers in front of General Lafayette on his second visit to the United States in 1825. Mary S. Bassett, oldest of the children of James H. Bassett and wife, is a resident of Litchfield, Kentucky, and is the widow of John H. Kenny, who was a dentist practicing at Paducah for many years and who died in 1896. Julia B. Bassett, the next in the family, lives at Louisville and is the widow of Carroll C. Chick, who was owner and operator of a flour mill at Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. Georgia B. Bassett lives at Birmingham, Alabama, widow of Samuel R. Dent, who for many years was engaged in merchandising at Litchfield, Kentucky. Robert J. Bassett is president of the Grayson County State Bank at Litchfield. James H. Bassett, Jr., who was born in 1863, had only one business association in all his active life, spending thirty-three years with the Hegan Mantle Company, and while traveling representative of that house he was killed, being hit by an automobile, and he died at Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1913. Edmund Ruffin Bassett, who was a retired banker when he died at Louisville in 1918, a victim of the influenza, was named for Edmund Ruffin, the Confederate soldier who fired the first shot at Fort Sumter at the beginning of the Civil war. The seventh of the Bassett children is Col. Erskine B. Bassett, the oldest merchant of Hopkinsville in point of continuous service, and who was an active member of the Kentucky State Bar from 1884 until he was mustered into the National Army at the beginning of the World war, and was colonel of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Infantry in France. Florence B. Bassett, who died at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1903, was the wife of J.Y. Johnson, who now lives in St. Louis, Missouri, being a civil engineer with the St. Louis Street Railway Company.
Frank H. Bassett was the tenth and youngest of this notable family. He spent most of his boyhood in Louisville, attending the Sacred Heart parochial school and graduating from St. Xavier's College in Louisville in 1887. For four years he was employed in the dry goods department of Colonel Bassett's store, and from 1891 was employed for two years by J.M. Robinson & Company at Louisville. In 1893, returning to Hopkinsville, he resumed work in his brother's dry goods business until 1898. and following that was an associate member of the hardware firm of Thompson & Bassett until 1905, when he sold out and used his means to carry out along the cherished purpose of becoming a physician. He entered the medical depatment of the University of Nashville, and received his M.D. degree in 1910. For one year he practiced as an interne in the Tennessee Hospital of Nashville, and then carried on a general practice at Hopklnsville six years. Since then his work has been largely as a specialist in anesthesia and as medical examiner for various insurance companies. He is a member of the County, State and American Medical associations.
Doctor Bassett has always been a staunch Democrat, but his political work has been entirely confined to the government of his home city. When Hopkinsville was given a new charter under the commission form of government he was one of the first city commissioners elected in 1915, beginning his duties in 1916. In that year he announced his intention of becoming a candidate for mayor in November, 1917, two years away, and when his name was presented as candidate for that office there was no opposition and he entered upon his career as mayor in January, 1918, and during the past two years has done much to dignify the office in the eyes of citizens and has given an administration of municipal affairs efficient and competent in every respect.
Doctor Bassett is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and is a past exalted ruler of Hopkinsville Lodge No. 545 of the Elks. He has been duly prospered in his business and professional career, and is owner of four business houses and several dwellings in Hopkinsville, his own home at 145 Alumni Avenue being one of the best residences in Western Kentucky.
On February 23, 1898, at Hopkinsville, Doctor Bassett married Miss Mamie Elizabeth Thompson. Her father, the late Charles A. Thompson, was one of the early hardware merchants of Hopkinsville. Mrs. Bassett finished her education in the Mary Sharp College of Winchester, Tennessee. To their union were born three children: Charles Thompson, who died at the age of sixteen; Florence Marshall, born November 1, 1902, now a student in an eastern college, and Frank H. Jr., who was born August 15, 1906.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1867 - 1945 (77 years)