| Notes |
- Bill Bassett
History of Park County, Montana 1984
Hattie and Mrs. Bassett moved up to the Papesh Place with Fred. One winter day they took a team and buggy and went to visit Bill. A big spring at the lower end of the Papesh Place had laid down a sheet of ice across the road. One of the horses slipped and fell, causing the wagon to lurch, throwing Mrs. Bassett on her head on the frozen ground. They righted things, and Mrs. Bassett appeared OK. They continued on to Bassett Creek. Betty prepared tea for them, and Mrs. Bassett proceeded to put spoonful after spoonful of sugar in her tea. That was the first indication that her head had been injured, but from that time on she was never in good mental health. When Hattie married Harry Bray, she moved to the deer Lodge area and took her mother with her. Mrs. Bassett died not long after the move at Warm Springs.
Fred worked at the Goffner Sawmill, above the Taylor Place in Mol Heron Creek, and became acquainted with Cinnabar Basin. He moved to the Basin around 1895, and settled where Al and Judy Jensen now live (on the Sargent Ranch). On Nov. 26, 1897, he married Leah Smith, whose family lived on the place which was later proved up on by the Hesit family. (He was 34 and she was 21.) Their first daughter, Florence, was born Sept. 22, 1898.
So for around ten years, the two Bassett families lived on opposite sides of the Yellowstone River. To visit each other or to trade work, they had to cross the river at a ford just above the present Corwin Bridge. Florence can even remember them hauling a threshing machine across the ford. She also recalls one time when her family went to visit Bill and Betty. They took a team and buggy. One of the horses was a mare which had a foal, which they allowed to tag along, as they were to be gone overnight. The river was high, and when the team plunged into the water at the ford, the colt swam ahead of the team and became lodged between the horses, under the tongue. Fred had to crawl out onto the tongue to push the colt forward and around in front of the team to prevent it from drowning.
Bill and Betty ranched on Bassett Creek for a number of years. Their children were Harvey (Ethel Rigler's father), Lester, Shelby, Nellie (who died when she was 8-12 years old, and is buried in the Gardiner Cemetery), Nora (who married Bill Jones), and Wildie (born about 1905). At a time when buffalo were near extinction, buffalo were a problem on this ranch, especially in the spring. On any given day, a person could round a corner of the barn while doing chores, and run into a cantankerous old bull. The bulls were known to breed their cows, and they had some hybrid calves. So they tried to run the animals off, with varying success.
In 1908, Bill sold the Bassett Creek place to the group which built the Corwin Springs Hotel and Plunge in 1909. The existing Corwin Bridge was built at that time. Subsequently, Betty operated a boarding house on Main Street in Livingston, and Bill set up a blacksmith shop in Fishtail. They are both buried at Fishtail. (After Bill died, in her later years, Betty married S.M. Fitzgerald, the man who originally led the Bassett family to Montana.)
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Bassett Family Association Database
1907 - 1986 (78 years)