| Notes |
- John Spencer Bassett entered Trinity College (now Duke University) in 1886 and graduated in 1888. In 1891, he enrolled at John Hopkins University and received his doctorate in 1894. He then returned to Trinity College as professor of history.
(Handwritten at top of page - Gift of 21 Oct 1943
Mrs. Bassett, 58 Pomeroy Terrace, Northampton, Massachusetts
Typed as original - misspellings included)
John Spencer Bassett
Soon after the war of 1812, in Virginia two young Bassetts, William and Richard, became heirs of their father's plantation near Williamsburg, called Eltham, and a small property of their mother's, whose maiden surname was Spencer. They decided to divide and settle up their possessions. Richard left the ancestral home, bought a few slave carpenters, and opened a contracting business in Williamsburg. His son, Richard Baxter, continued his father's business for a time, but later moved to North Carolina.
Williamsburg, although the home of one of the oldest societies in America, was then and still is, a place where there is the greatest amount of equality. This mingling of the good people of the town made a deep impression on the plantation-born elder Bassett, and the democratic idea waxed greater in his son.
Richard Baxter Bassett in his building career in North Carolina designed, as well as built, many structures of note in his adopted state. And it was while he was building at Tarboro that his second son, John Spencer Bassett, was born December 19, 1867.
The son has this to say of his father: "My father was unlike anybody else I have ever known. He was as pure-minded as a woman. I never heard him make an improper or profane remark. He was strict in his household, but never unkind. He was deeply religious, absolutely opposed to slavery, charitable, hospitable, industrious, and generous in his expenditure of money."
The mother of John S. Bassett, Mary Jane Wilson, whose father was John Wilson, a Maine yankee, was a woman of remarkably sweet disposition and great personal beauty. I quote "My mother possessed a very quick and retentive mind, a clear Madonna-like face, fine complexion, and handsome, grey eyes."
The earliest education of the boy John was in the neighborhood schools of Richlands, a plantation his father owned in Eastern North Carolina, and at Goldsboro, not far away; the town that became the permanent residence of the Bassett family. It was here that John graduated from the high school in June, 1883. In the high school under the instruction of a man of good spirit and modern educational methods literature came to mean something to the sensitive, impressionable, and somewhat shy boy. At this point, however, a delicate state of health, as the result of a severe attack of pneumonia, interrupted his attendance at school for two years.
In 1885, John entered the senior form at the Davis Military Academy, La Grange, North Carolilna, and received his diploma at the end of the school year. At the military academy he was again fortunate in having an able instructor, who was a graduate of the University of Virginia. From him the youth learned to love the Gallic tongue.
In 1886, John Bassett, now nineteen, well grown for his age, fair, round-faced with real humor in the grey eyes that almost closed when he laughed, had been more fortunate than most boys in all the phases of life in which he had been placed. His father had provided him with simple, though not extravagant means. His alive, penetrating and keen mind did not seem to necessitate great effort in his studies. His sensibility was enough for him to know there were great fields of knowledge to be found, but there again were sureness and sagacity that prevented literary work from becoming laborious even to the end of his life.
In the autumn of 1886, he entered the Junior class of Trinity College, North Carolina, and at the end of two years received his third diploma, and an A.B. degree. After college, he taught for two years in the High School of Durham.
In 1890, he accepted the deanship of the preparatory school at Trinity College, together with some classes in history and English in the college. This position he gave up after a year to go to Johns Hopkins University. In his own words: "To this institution I was led by the fact that I wanted to study history, and it was here that Herbert B. Adams, then one of the most noted history teachers in America was teaching. In Professor Adams I found a worthy friend. No man ever had to a greater extent the faculty of inspiring boys to work. He was full of fire, but it was balanced by good sense, and he ever gave a ready hearing to one who was perplexed. A prime notion of his was that young students ought to be encouraged to write. This just suited me. From the earliest stage of my education it seemed to me that the thing most worth doing in life was to write books. There was never a time when I did not have some notion of a literary life."
With his ardent desire to write Mr. Bassett fell in readily with Professor Adams' incitement to productive scholarship. In his second year at Hopkins he had an article published in the "Magazine of American History". This pleased him immensely.
In august of 1892, he married Jessie Lewellin, a girl born in Virginia, brought up in North Carolina, who had the preceding year of her marriage been principal of the primary department of the Dawson, Georgia, public schools. By this marriage there were four children, two now living - Richard Horace and Margaret Byrd.
For the first two years at Johns Hopkins, Mr. Bassett was honorary scholar from North Carolina. In 1893 at the end of the second university year, he was elected fellow in history, and the following year took his doctor's degree. During this time, he also completed a summer course in common law at the University of North Carolina and had an article published in the "Law Quarterly Review of London".
In the fall of 1893, he had been appointed to the chair of history at Trinity College in Durham, North Carolina, with a year's leave of absence to finish his graduate work. He began teaching in the fall of 1894.
In any estimation of the results of Mr. Bassett's career, they fall into three classes - his career as a teacher of history, his career as a writer of history, and his career as an editor. He developed the Historical Society of Trinity College and published a series of historical papers. He founded and edited the "South Atlantic Quarterly". He collected and published papers for the North Carolina Historical Society, and wrote many magazine articles. While he was at Trinity, his chief publications were "Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina" (a new edition of a very old valuable work), "The Federalist System", one of the volumes of the American Nation series published by Harpers.
In 1906, Mr. Bassett was called to the chair of American History at Smith College; and, after the resignation of Professor Hazen, was elected to the headship of the history department on the Sydenham Clark Parsons Foundation, founded by Mrs. Arthur Curtis James. During the years at Smith College, thanks to an agreement on the arrangement of his teaching schedule and a reader for his students' papers, more time was secured for the long chapter of twenty-one years of his historical writing. The first result of the favorable conditions at Smith was a two-volume "Life of Andrew Jackson", written entirely from original sources before that material had been given to the Library of Congress and classified. This large amount of personalia and public papers had never before been used by an investigator. After the "Jackson" came "The Short History of the United States", which entered on its fourth edition two years ago. Then followed "The Middle Group of American Historians". "The Writing of History", "The Lost Fruits of Waterloo", "Our War with Germany", "Expansion and Reform" (a volume in the "Epochs of American History"), "Makers of a New Nation" (a volume in "The Pageant of America"), "The Plantation Overseer, as shown in his letters", "The League of Nations, a Chapter in World Politics". At the time of his death he was collecting material for a "History of the English People".
Editorially Mr. Bassett had published six volumes of the "Correspondence of Andrew Jackson" and had prepared five more volumes, which were published after his death. He also edited "The Correspondence of George Bancroft and Jared Sparks", "The Westover Journal of John A. Seldon", Major Howell Tatums' "Journal", and Letters of Francis Parkman to Piere Margry".
Mr. Bassett gave courses of lectures at Chicago University, New York University, University of Iowa, Yale University, and for many years at Columbia University. He founded, edited, revived and otherwise fostered literary underskatings at Smith College. He became interested in the Northampton Historical Society and gave generously of his time to its revival.
For many years he was secretary of the American Historical Association; and to his real surprise fairly early in his New England life, he was accorded a membership in the Massachusetts Historical Society. One year he delivered two of the "Lowell Lectures" of that society, an honor coveted by any historian. He received various honors, two in England and an LL.D. from Duke University. He was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Massachusetts Antiquarian Society, The Council of the Learned Societies, and, earlier in his career, of Phi Beta Kappa.
No man alive ever enjoyed more keenly intellectual intercourse with his fellow beings in the clubs and societies to which he belonged than did this historian. The last function he attended, two days before the tragedy of his death, was a dinner at the home of one of the members of the Northampton Wednesday Dining Club. He derived real pleasure from the contacts this club gave him, as he did from the men of the Century Club in New York and the Cosmos Club in Washington. He was on his way to the last-named club for a conference with his close friends of the Learned Societies when he met with his fatal accident in 1928.
In closing this brief sketch of Mr. Bassett's life an extract from a "Foreward" by James T. Shotwell in the "League of Nations" book will appeal to his friends: -
"The pages which follow were the last to come from the pen of one who for a whole generation held his place among the first of American historians. This volume although it explores another field bear witness to the qualities of scholarship, the sobriety of judgment and directness of vision which made Professor Bassett's interpretation of American History so notable a contribution to the understanding of our national characteristics and development. The objectivity of the true historian is evident in every part of the narrative.... The story is kept with an even keel in the confusion of passionate controversies, without for a moment surrenderng the author's fight of individual judgment or even his free expression of sympathy with those achievements of experimental statesmanship which crested the League of Nations.... But to his colleagues in the guild of American historians this volume will mean much more than a historical narrative, however distinct its achievement in the new field of international history.... There was another ideal than mere scholarship which explains the penetrating quality of Professor Bassett's interpretation of history; it was the ideal of the gift of friendship. A kindly interest which was not to be imposed upon, a willingness to make allowances for imperfections so long as they were not those of hypocricy, and a quck and eager acceptance of like minded comradship in the quest for the honest and sincere, this was a quality which turned mere scholarship into genuine history, and made of the life work of Professor Bassett a major contribution to that greatest of all problems in American education, the acquis[i]tion of the open mind."
(Signed in her handwriting:) Jessie L Bassett (Mrs. J.S. Bassett)
The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography
John Spencer Bassett
John Spencer Bassett, author and educator, was born in Tarboro, North Carolina, September 10, 1867, son of Richard Baxter and Mary Jane (Wilson) Bassett and grandson of Richard and Catherine (Spencer) Cowles Taylor Bassett. HIs father was an architect. After receiving his preparatory education at public and private schools in Wayne and Onslow counties, North Carolina, and The Davis School, La Grange, North Carolina, John S. Bassett was graduated A.B. at Trinity College (later Duke University) in 1888 and Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University in 1894. Meanwhile, he began his teaching career at a high school in Durham, North Carolina, in 1888, where he continued for two years. During 1890-91, he served for a year as the principal of Trinity Finishing School at Trinity College. He was professor of history at Trinity College during 1893-1906, leaving there in the latter year to become professor of American history at Smith College. He continued in that position until the close of his life. Bassett was a founder of 9019, a scholarship society at Trinity, which in 1902 inaugurated publication of the South Atlantic Quarterly, whose purpose was to give writers and investigators of the South a medium for the publication of their work. He served as first editor of the journal until 1906. He was a lecturer at Yale University in 1907 and 1908 and at New York University in 1909. He was also a lecturer in summer session at Yale, Iowa, Columbia and Chicago Universities. Bassett was a well-known writer and an authority on Andrew Jackson (q.v.). His books included "The Federalist System" (1905), which was awarded the John Marshall Prize of Johns Hopkins University in 1906; "The Life of Andrew Jackson" (1911), the first biography written from the original Jackson papers; "A Short History of the United States" (1913), which became a standard one-volume text; "The Plain Story of American History" (1915); "The Middle Group of American Historians" (1917); "The Lost Fruits of Waterloo" (1918); "Our War With Germany" (1919), the first history of the American side of the First World War; "Expansion and Reform" (1926); "The Makers of a Nation" (1928); and "The League of Nations, A Chapter in World Politics" (1928). He was also author of numerous articles for various books of collected historical information. Bassett was the editor of "The Writings of Colonel William Byrd of Westover in Virginia" (1901), "Selections from the Federalist" (1921), "The Plantation Overseer as Shown in His Letters" (1925), "The Correspondence of Andrew Jackson" (1925), and "The Writing of History" (1926). He was co-editor with Sidney B. Fay, of the "Smith College Studies in History" (1915-26). During the summer of 1918 he did special work on government war records in Washington, D.C. An honorary LL.D. degree was conferred on him by Trinity College in 1916. He was vice-chairman, during 1919-28, of the endowment fund of the American Historical Association, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society of London, England, and a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, American Antiquarian Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Council of Learned Societies, Massachusetts Historical Society, the Century Club of New York city, the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C., and the Northampton (Mass.) Club. He was chairman of the advisory group of the Democratic National Committee during the campaign of 1920. Bassett was married in Winston, North Carolina, August 10, 1892, to Jessie, daughter of Horace Lewellin, of Durham, North Carolina, a merchant, and had two children: Margaret Byrd and Richard Horace. His death occurred in Washington, D.C. , January 27, 1928.
The North Carolina Historical Review
Volume XXV - July, 1948 - Number 3
John Spencer Bassett as a Historican of the South by Wendell H. Stephenson
Among the pioneers who sought to promote historical scholarship in the South as the nineteenth century faded into the twentieth was John Spencer Bassett. A native of North Carolina, he attended Trinity College, attained the doctorate at Johns Hopkins University, and returned to his undergraduate alma mater as professor of history. His interests were varied and his ability was exceptional. A penchant for research and writing yielded monographs on North Carolina history, and as a corollary he assembled printed and manuscript records in the Trinity library. He inspired in his students a Jeffresonian passion "to follow truth wherever it may lead," even though it undermined southern tradition. Southern liberal in a generation dominated by conservative thinking, his provacative preachments stirred reactionaries to protestations. A dozen years at Trinity College brought local and then national recognition and an invitation to a northern professorship. Thereafter his interest in Southern history waned.
Bassett's father and paternal grandfather were democratic Virginians, devout Methodists, successful carpenters and contractors, slaveholders on a small scale, and critics of slavery but not antislavery agitators. His grandparent, Richard Bassett, resident of Williamsburg, apprenticed his son Richard Baxter to a Richmond firm of contractors. After mastering the trade, the younger Richard became a builder, first in Williamsburg, then in Norfolk, and finally at various places in North Carolina. In 1861 he joined the Edgecombe Guards, a company of the First North Carolina Regiment, but after the battle of Big Bethel he was assigned by the Secretary to the Commissary Department and manufactured army supplies until the close of the war. A turn at planting in the Reconstruction era provided temporary occupation, but after a few years he returned to his original vocation. Meanwhile, in 1863, a second marriage united a southern family with New England stock. Mary Jane Wilson was the daughter of a Maine millwright who had moved to North Carolina a generation earlier. The Bassett's second child, John Spencer, was born at Tarboro on September 10, 1867.
Early education at Richlands, Goldsboro, and the Jefferson Davis Military Academy at LaGrange prepared Bassett for Trinity College, then located in Randolph County. When he enrolled as a junior in 1886, Trinity was an ordinary backwoods institution with an antiquated curriculum, inadequate financial resources, and a temporary administration. The election of John F. Crowell, graduate of Yale University, to the presidency the year after Bassett entered resulted in liberalization of the course of study and introduction of the system of election. Bassett graduated in 1888, and after teaching for a couple of years in the Durham public schools; he returned to Trinity College as instructor in English and principal of the preparatory department.
He was not long content to remain inadequately prepared. Inspired by Crowell and recommended by Stephen B. Weeks, he entered Johns Hopkins University. By the last decade of the nineteenth century, this Baltimore institution of higher learning had become an academic focus for graduates of southern colleges and universities. Its location south of the Mason and Dixon line prompted a feeling that it was a southern university; a generous supply of scholarships for residents of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina provided financial aid; and the liberal attitude of Herbert B. Adams, director of the department of history and political science, assured sympathetic treatment of southern scholars and southern subjects. Bassett studied at Hopkins for three years, 1891-1894, emphasizing history but delving also into economics and sociology. For the first two years he was a Hopkins Scholar; in his third he held a five-hundred-dollar fellowship. His dissertation, a study of "The Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina (1663-1729)", was published in the University "Studies in Historical and Political Science". Armed with a degree and a zest for historical scholarship in all of its ramifications, he returned to Trinity College as professor of history, a position to which he had been elected the year before. He was not long in acquiring a reputation as the South's foremost scholar in the field of history.....
Daily Hampshire, 27 January 1928
Professor Bassett killed by Trolley at Capitol
History Teacher at Smith Since 1906 Was Widely Known as Educator and Author -
Had Gone to Washington in Connection With Raising of Fund for American Historical Association
Washington, Jan. 27. - (AP) - John Spencer Bassett of Northampton, Massachusetts, widely known as an educator and writer, was killed here today by a street car. He had written extensively on historical subjects, those pertaining to southern affairs. He was born in Tarboro, North Carolina, September 10, 1867.
Mr. Bassett was for many years a teacher of history at Trinity college, now Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Since 1906 he had been professor of history at Smith College, Northampton.
Mr. Bassett was struck by the car as he was approaching the Cosmos club here. As he was not a frequent visitor at the club, no one was able to identify him at the time. He was placed on a passing motor truck, and taken to a hospital, where he died.
The death of Professor John Spencer Bassett in Washington, where he was killed by a street car today, is the second tragedy to claim a member of the Smith college faculty in less than a month. On December 29, Professor Harry Norman Gardiner, for many years professor of psychology at the college, was killed by an automobile in front of John M. Greene hall.
Professor Bassett had gone to Washington in connection with the raising of an endowment fund for the American Historical association, of which he was secretary. He had been active in this association, and was also a member of the Massachusetts Historical society and the Antiquarian society.
He gave two courses at Smith college, on "the political and social history of the United States in recent times," and "American participation in the world war and the problems arising out of it." He was absent on a sabbatical leave last year, which he spent in Europe studying and gathering material for new books.
Among his best known works were a life of Andrew Jackson, "A Short History of the United States" and "Our War with Germany." Professor Bassett edited "The Southern Plantation Overseer as Revealed in His Letters", and "The Correspondence of Andrew Jackson," among other like volumes.
He leaves his widow and two children, Margaret, who graduated from Smith college in 1924 and is now in New York City, where she is engaged in literary work, and Richard, who is an artist with a studio in New York. It is understood he is now in Florida.
Professor Bassett was a keen student of historical affairs and while on his sabbatical leave last year, spent considerable time at Geneva observing the work of the League of Nations. A book on the league, based on this visit to Geneva, is to be published soon by Longman's, British publishers.
Professor Bassett was deeply interested in the Northamption Historical society, and had served on its program committee. Only recently it was learned today, he came to the treasurer of the society with a check which he had received for speaking before a woman's club. He had taken the money under protest, but finally agreed to accept it, and turn it over to the Northampton Historical society. It was believed this afternoon that the check, which was deposited as the nucleus of an endowment fund for the society, would be named the Bassett fund.
Professor Bassett was member of the First church parish and interested in its work. He lived at 58 Pomeroy Terrace, where he purchased the Gaylord property some years ago.
John Spencer Bassett was born in Tarboro, North Carolina, September 10, 1867, son of Richard Baxter and Mary WIlson Bassett. He received the degree of Bachelor Arts from Trinity college in 1888 and the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Johns Hopkins university in 1894. He was married to Jessie Lewallin of Durham, North Carolina, in 1892. He was professor of history in Trinity college from 1893 to 1906, when he came to Smith college.
Professor Smith was the editor of the South Carolina Quarterly from 1902 to 1905, a lecturer at Yale in 1907 and 1908 and at New York university in 1909. He was a member of the American Historical association, the Massachusetts Historical society and the Antiquarian society.
His writings included: Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina, 1894; Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina, 1896; the Regulators of North Carolina, 1896; Anti-Slavery Leaders of North Carolina, 1898; Slavery in the State of North Carolina, 1899; The Federalist System, 1905; The Plain Story of American History, 1915; The Middle Group of American Historians, 1917; The Lost Fruits of Waterloo, 1918; second edition, 1919. He edited the writings of Col. William Byrd, of Westover, in Virginia, Esq., 1901. He was a member of the Century club of New York,
Professor Bassett had the rare and fortunate gift of deep learning combined with a most pleasant personality, so that while he was regarded as one of the most learned members of the Smith faculty, his courses were among the most popular. The wide range of his knowledge and the thoughfulness of his opinions made him much in demand as a public speaker, and his distinguished appearance and keeness of mind made him a commanding figure at any gathering. His passing cannot fail of awakening the citizens of Northampton and the students and faculty at the college to a feeling of irreparable loss.
The Daily Hampshire
Saturday, January 28, 1928, Northampton, Massachusetts
Memorial Service for Professor Bassett Monday
Will Be Held in John M. Greene Hall at 2 P.M. - Colleague Pays High Tribute
A memorial service for Professor John Spencer Bassett, eminent historian, who was killed by a street car in Washington yesterday, will be held Monday afternoon at two o'clock in John M. Greene hall, it was announced today at Smith College, where Mr. Bassett had been professor of history for 22 years.
High tribute to Professor Bassett as "one of America's leading historical scholars and one of Smith's most distinguished teachers" was paid today by Professor John C. Hilt of the history department of the college. This tribute appears in full at end of this article.
The esteem in which Professor Bassett was held by his friends in Northampton was evidenced yesterday afternoon, when numerous telephone calls to the Gazette requested confirmation of the tragic news which had been posted by the newspaper on its bulletin board, and these inquiries all expressed their shocked surprise at the news.
Further details of the funeral plans will be announced Monday. It is understood that the memorial service at John M. Greene hall will be the only funeral service for Professor Bassett. Burial will be in Bridge street cemetery, where Professor Harry Norman Gardiner, who was accidentally killed on December 29, was also buried.
Additional details of the accident which resulted in Professor Bassett's death were contained in dispatches from Washington this morning, which stated that the accident was witnessed by many persons, but that the body of the historian lay for two hours in the Emergency hospital at Washington before it was identified. Failture to identify him sooner was due in some measure, it was reported, to delay in the police report of the accident, which was not made until afternoon, and an error by the hospital, which reported the name incorrectly.
Lifted Into Truck
Unrecognized by members of the Cosmos club, where he was an infrequent visitor, Professor Bassett was lifted into a passing truck loaded with stone, and rushed to the hospital.
The police reported that Professor Bassett stepped off one street car and walked into the path of another, going in the opposite direction.
The motorman of the car, Nathaniel S. Applewhite, and the conductor, Elbert B. Queen, were arrested and released to appear at an inquest today.
Mr. Bassett arrived in Washington yesterday morning to attend the sessions of the Council of Learned Societies, and took a street car to the Cosmos club, where he was to stay. He alighted from the car and had started across the eastbound tracks when he was struck by an eastbound car. He was thrown across the other tracks.
David F. Shay, manager of the club, who saw the accident from his office window, said Mr. Bassett was crying out in pain and bleeding profusely from a cut in his head. Mr. Shay, who did not recognize him, and J.W. Padgett, truck driver, lifted him into the truck and Padgett drove him to the hospital. Mr. Shay said everything was done to make him as comfortable as possible on the rough stone, one of Padgett's fellow employees holding his head in his lap.
Mr. Bassett was identified by several letters in his pocket. He died of a fractured skull.
Mentioned For United States Senatorship
Professor Bassett was prominently mentioned in 1922 for the Democratic candidacy for United States senator to run against Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. He was not without political experience, though he never held political office. During the presidential campaign of 1920, he was chairman of the Democratic advisory committee and was one of the men who furnished Gov. Co, Democratic nominee, with material for his speeches. In that campaign, he was the friend and adviser of Chairman Hull of the Democratic national committee. In relation to his suggested candidacy, Professor Bassett was spoken of as a forceful speaker and excellent debater, well qualified to take the stump against Senator Lodge. He studied jurisprudence under Woodrow Wilson at Johns Hopkins university.
Professor Hildt Pays Tribute
The following tribute to Professor Bassett was written for the Gazette by Professor John C. Hildt, a colleague and old friend on the Smith faculty:
By the sudden death of Professor John Spencer Bassett, America loses one of her leading historical scholars, Smith college one of its most distinguished teachers and Northampton an honored and reliable citizen. A native of North Carolina, Professor Bassett received his college training at Trinity college, Durham, North Carolina, Here he developed his enthusiastic love for history, which led him to pursue graduate study in that field at the Johns Hopkins university in Baltimore. After three years of study there he obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosphy and returned to his alma mater to become professor of history there until 1906. In 1906 he came to Smith college as professor of American history. While at Smith his services were much in demand by other colleges and at various times he was visiting member of the faculties of Yale, Columbia and New York universities. In addition he taught for many years in Columbia university summer school. A few years ago Trinity college, now Duke university, conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws.
As an investigator and productive scholar Professor Bassett stood in the front rank. His enthusiasm for original investigation was unbounded, it was the dominating interest of his life. He not only devoted himself to it unsparingly and untiring, but he was always stirring up other teachers and students to the same pursuit and infecting them with his devotion to original and productive scholarship. Indeed, he may be said to have lost his life in his zeal for this branch of scholarship for he had gone to Washington in the interest of raising a million dollar fund for the American Historical association, which is to be an endowment for original work and investigation.
Professor Bassett's investigations were confined to the field of American history, but there they were wide and varied. He was, however, the recognized authority on the life and times of Andrew Jackson. He was engaged in editing the letters and papers of Andrew Jackson, three volume of which have already been published. His biography of Jackson is the recognized standard life of that great American. The list of Professor Bassett's other books, magazine articles and reviews fill many pages. Among them is to be noted his "Brief History of the United States," which is regarded as the best and most popular text book in American history in this country. As an historian there was nothing spectacular about Professor Bassett, he was no self-advertiser and popularity seeker. His work is marked by its earnestness, good judgment, wide and thorough knowledge, accuracy and honesty. His works therefore are genuine contributions to the history of our country and of lasting value.
As a teacher in Smith college Professor Bassett was always a popular one. His urbanity, his geniality, his wide knowledge of his subject, his keen insight into the forces of events and the character of men, his sense of humor, the honesty of his judgments had a wide appeal and made both his courses and himself one of the most powerful factors in the intellectual and social life of the college. As a colleague his dignified courtesy, his fairness, the sobriety of his judgment, his high intellectual and moral ideals. He was never known to make a biting or sarcastic remark, he was always willing to give the benefit of the doubt. There was a calmness and dispassionateness in his thought and action which was oftimes in sharp contrast to the tendencies of the present day.
Mr. Bassett was vitally and keenly interested in the life and people of the town where he had made his home for more than twenty years. He had many warm friendships with those not connected with the college. He was a frequent visitor to the Northampton club, to which he belonged. He was keenly interested in the history of Northampton and was one of the guiding spirits of the Northampton Historical society. His home on Pomeroy reflected the serenity, the culture and the devotion of his family life. The genuine hospitality that was to be found there made it a center of attraction for members of the faculty, students and townspeople alike. As the days go on the sense of the loss of Mr. Bassett will be more greatly realized and appreciated.
Daily Hampshire Gazette
Tuesday, January 31, 1928
Noted Educators Laud Life of Professor Bassett
American Historians, Duke University and Alumnae Are Represented
The funeral service of Professor John Spencer Bassett, for twenty-two years a member of the department of history at Smith college, was conducted yesterday afternoon in John M. Greene hall by President William Allan Neilson. Addresses were made for the American historians by Dr. John Franklin Jamieson, Washington, D.C., managing editor of the American Historical Review, for the alumnae of Smith College by Mrs. Edward H. Kent of Kingston, Pennsylvania, a former student of Professor Bassett, and for the South by Professor William K. Boyd of the department of history at Duke university. Professor Boyd is also a former student of Professor Bassett, who taught at Trinity college, now Duke university, before coming to Smith. The final address was made by President Neilson, who then read that prayer of President L. Clark Seelye's which was read at his own funeral.
The funeral service in the cemetery was conducted by Professor Irving Wood of the department of religion and Biblical literature.
At John M. Greene hall the first row was reserved for the family, the second and third for the many honorary pallbearers, and the six active pallbearers, who were Professors Sidney B. Fay, Edward Wells, Sidney Pakcard, Harold Faulkner, and Merle Curti of Smith college, and Raymond King, son of Warren King, of Northampton, representing the town.
Among those attending the services was Rev. Dr. Peter Guilday, head of the history department of the Catholic university, at Washington D.C. who is president of the American Catholic Historical Society, and a member of the American Historical society. Dr. Guilday, who is a well-known historian, represented Catholic university at the funeral.
Professor Jamieson's Eulogy
Professor Jamieson said in part: We have lost a most faithful, competent, and exceedingly useful person in Professor Bassett. He was faithful, competent, and exceedingly useful in matters in the city of Northampton as well as a professor at Smith college, but there are others who can speak better of those aspects of his life.
I want to say a few words about Mr. Bassett's life in relation to the American Historical association. When I first knew anything of instruction in universities and colleges, a professor was in most cases simply a teacher. Professors of the same subject in different colleges did not know each other and had no relation to each other; their relations were in each case to the college in which the man served. Gradually this condition changed, and about a dozen years after the Philadelphia Centennial there were founded the dozen or more national societies of those occupied in teaching the same subjects. The American Historical association was founded in 1884 and is now a body of some thirty-four hundred people. The whole group of such societies has had an effect on the intellectual life of America that is not always duly recognized.
Mr. Bassett was for the past ten years the secretary of this association. It was because of his devotion to the interests of the society that he went to Washington to attend the meeting of the secretaries of such societies. He had served the society with the greatest faithfulness and ardor. The position of secretary of that society is an unpaid position, in which a busy professor might well feel justified in doing the minimum necessary to keep the machine going. That was not Mr. Bassett's conception of the office. With his enormous power of work - I have heard him say he seemed never to be tired - with his energy and resourcefulness he set out to do all that could be done, perpetually devising new ways of helpfulness to the society. But it was not simply the power of work and energy and devotion that he brought to the office, but his patience and serenity of temper, his gentleness and kindness, and consideration for others that made him doubly influential in that office and doubly successful.
Mr. Bassett was by nature and determination a writer. With an unusual capacity for business in early life he had many opportunities by which he might have become a very rich man, but that was not his wish. Most of you know of the long series of valuable books that came from him, and how well they stand all tests. Lately I have had occasion to go through his "Life of Andrew Jackson" - an admirable work - and it shows me the even-handed justice with which he would regard a historical character in the past as in the present time. He has left two books, lately finished, of which the later was a book on the history, in the past seven or eight years, of the League of Nations. He made a careful study in Geneva, with great aid from all authorities there. This is a legacy that will not die. It is treated as Mr. Bassett used to treat his history, fairly and without prejudice, it is something that will help toward the humanizing of mankind that was so dear to his heart.
Mrs. Kent Speaks
Mrs. Kent said in part: The part which I am to take in this service this afternoon is not to speak of Mr. Bassett's scholarly attainments, but rather as one of his former pupils, to bear witness unto him as a guide, philosopher and friend to all who knew him while I was in college.
It was my privilege as an undergraduate to study American history under Mr. Bassett's guidance. He had a fine, sturdy, detached philosophy, the result of his mature years, and this he tried to communicate to me so that I might go out into life and benefit by his experience. Those of us who had the opportunity of knowing him intimately will never forget all that he did for us. We shall always carry his spirit with us in our hearts and in our minds, a precious, valuable companionship.
Dr. Neilson Concludes Services
President Neilson concluded the services, saying in part: There remain many things to be said of our friend, but they are things familiar to most of us here, his qualities as they ripened and mellowed in his later life after his fighting years, his qualities as an example to students of his tireless seeking after truth, his qualities as a most friendly and helpful colleague. But those things are the least necessary to emphasize now. His friends in the larger world of scholarship, and those who knew him in his years in the South have spoken of these things, and they help us only to realize more profoundly the loss that we mourn today.
Professor Boyd's Address
Professor Boyd's address was in part: Of all the men I have known, John Spencer Bassett was unique in that he radiated these home qualities to many groups of people. One has spoken of his abiding place in the hearts of Smith college students; another of his ingegration in the world of scholarship. Others by their presence here bear testimony to his relationships in the realm of arts and letters. I wish briefly to speak of his place in another home - one with which he was physically identified in his youth, to which now and always he belongs. He was a southerner and the folk down home have always in the past and always will in the future claim him as one of them.
He had more than a scholar's interest in the past. He was a social critic and viewed the present in the light of the past. The South was even then undergoing a rapid change and an examination of that change from the angle of past decades was one of his constant themes. Moreover, he desired a wider audience for criticism than the college itself. He desired a community for criticism and so he dreamed of establishing a literary periodical which should be a medium through which thinking men of the younger generation of the South could express themselves. In 1902 he hung the responsibilities upon that scholarship society he had founded; and then appeared the first number of the South Atlantic Quarterly. Its scope soon became more cosmopolitan than its founder contemplated, but throughout its 25 years of existence the periodical has made a larger contribution to our knowledge of southern history and social institutions than any other American magazine.
Now criticism at the turn of the century was bound to meet opposition from demagogues and obscurantists. A challenge was given and accepted. The fight occurred, the triumph was with the college. In the South there was at last one place in which men were free to think and live according to their convictions.
What a heritage is this, and yet this is not all. In 1906 Professor Bassett came to Northampton. Long after his arrival here his old college was transformed into a university. And strange, yet not strange, for we historians believe in continuity, the work of John Spencer Bassett was the major link connecting the small college of former days with the present university. The scholarship society he founded was the antecedent of the Phi Beta Kappa of Duke university. The historical collection he began was the origin of the largest and most cosmopolitan historical library in the South Atlantic states. The publications he established were the germ of the Duke University Press. Freedom to think, of which he was the apostle, has expanded into the university spirit. In the days of the small college authorities the necessity of spending some money for books and of establishing publications. Today those are not the problems of Duke university, for every dollar that can be spared for books and publications is given to us. Rather, our problem today is to find men who have the practicability of mind and the devotion to knowledge of John Spencer Bassett. Today and always the inner shrine of his home is in the heart of Duke university.
"Scholarship, criticism, even duty, these are all but dross unless with them there is that great element known as friendship - and here my feelings are too strong for me to speak very objectively; suffice it to say that in those 12 years I believe there was no man with ambition of mind who did not consult Professor Bassett; from him we always received wise counsel and friendly direction. Thanks in part to his pointing the way, Trinity men are now presidents of colleges, deans of universities, teachers, journalists, economists. The numerous messages of the last few days bear testimony to the seed he sowed in the minds of his students.
"Home - John Spencer Bassett has mansions not made with hands - in the heart of his university, in the traditions and growth of Smith college, in the ever unfolding world of historical scholarship, in the wide realm of American Arts and Letters. Such personalities make up that choir invisible which makes glad the music of the universe. To us, to you and to me, there is a challenge to carry on the torch in the way that was his."
1870 Federal Census of Goldsboro Township, Wayne County, North Carolina (3 Aug 1870)
Richard Bassett - 27 - M - Virginia - Farmer 2000 700
Mary G. - 24 - F - North Carolina - Keeping House
Richard B. - 4 - M - North Carolina
John S. - 2 - M - North Carolina
Albert F. - 1 - M - North Carolina
1880 Federal Census of Richlands, Onslow County, North Carolina (11 Jun 1880)
Richard B. Bassett - 47 - M - VA-VA-VA - Head - Farmer
Mary - 37 - F - NC-ME-NC - Wife - Keeps House
Richard B. Jr. - 15 - M - NC-VA-NC - Son - Works on farm
John S. - 13 - M - NC-VA-NC - Son - Works on farm
Albert L. - 11 - M - NC-VA-NC - Son - Works on farm
Mary E. - 9 - F - NC-VA-NC - Daughter
William S. - 6 - M - NC-VA-NC - Son
Lena H. - 4 - F - NC-VA-NC - Daughter
Bessy W. - 1 - F - NC-VA-NC - Daughter
Susan Willson - 70 - F - NC-NC-NC - Mother to Mary Bassett - At home
Janie Foster - 36 - F - NC-NC-NC - Servant
Sallie Foster - 2 - F - NC-NC-NC
1910 Federal Census of 2nd Ward, Northampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts (21 Apr 1910)
John S. Bassett - 42 - M - NC-VA-NC - Head - Teacher College
Jessie - 40 - F - VA-VA-VA - Wife
Margaret - 7 - F - NC-NC-VA - Daughter
Richard H. - 10 - M - NC-NC-VA - Son
(Living on Kensington Avenue) (Married 17 years, 4 children, 2 living)
1920 Federal Census of 3rd Ward, Northampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts (19 Jan 1920)
John S. Bassett - 51 - M - NC-VA-NC - Head - History Professor College
Jessie L. - 51 - F - VA-VA-VA - Wife
Margaret - 17 - F - NC-NC-VA - Daughter
Richard - 19 - M - NC-NC-VA - Son - Art Student
Margaret Watsky - 25 - F - AU-AU-AU - Servant - (AU - Austria)
(Living on Pomeroy Terrace East Side)
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Bassett Family Association Database
1867 - 1928 (60 years)