Charles Osgood Bassett and his son Laurence Brooke Bassett descend from Willliam Bassett of Plymouth as follows:
William Bassett and wife Elizabeth
Joseph Bassett (b. 1635) and wife Mary Lapham
William Bassett (b. 1667) and wife Sarah Sweetland
William Bassett (b. 1694) and wife Mary Crossman
William Bassett (b. 1726) and wife Lydia Fisher
Samuel Bassett (b. 1753) and wife Martha Belding
Nathan Bassett (b. 1798) and wife Harriet Willard
Charles Bassett (b. 1822) and wife Mary Ann Benton
Charles Osgood Bassett (b. 1851) and wife Mary Stone Hitchcock
Laurence Brooke Bassett (b. 1878)
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Monday, August 14, 1939
Laurence B. Bassett
Laurence Brooke Bassett, president of the Bassett Co., printers and lithographers, died suddenly Saturday night when he was stricken by a heart attack as he walked up the stairs in his home at 2233 South Overlook Road, Cleveland Heights.
Death came just two days after he had celebrated his 60th birthday anniversary.
Mr. Bassett was a member of two pioneer Cleveland families. His father, Charles Osgood Bassett, was a leader in the printing trade here for many years, and his mother, the former Mary Stone Hitchcock, was descended from the city’s early settlers.
A native of Cleveland, Mr. Bassett attended Case School of Applied Science and was graduated from the Michigan College of Mines, Houghton, Mich.
He worked several years as a mining engineer before returning to Cleveland as an associate of his father in the Forman-Bassett Co. On the death of his father he became president of the Bassett Lithographing Co. which later became the Bassett Co.
He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Daisy Millar Bassett; a sister, Mrs. George Friebolin; two nephews, W.W. and Charles B. Mountcastle, and a niece, Mrs. Harold Sayre of Miami, Fla. Funeral services will be private.
Monotype: A Journal of Composing Room Efficiency, May-June 1917
Forman-Bassett
It is a long look backward to 1834, when Alfred Sanford started a little printing and stationery side line that soon outgrew the main business and was destined to become the great plant of The Forman-Bassett Co., Cleveland, Ohio; but to the men who have just celebrated the eighty-fifth anniversary of that event the retrospect is both interesting and inspiring.
A four-page supplement to the Cleveland Sunday News-Leader was issued to mark the eighty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the plant, and from it we gather these facts in the history of this big business institution.
The little plant which was the nucleus around which the present business developed was the first stationery and printing plant in Cleveland, and later added the first lithographic department. Today it is complete as a printing, lithographing, binding and stationery business, with special departments for steel-plate printing and steel-die stamping, and requires a large, six-story building with over an acre of floor space to house it. Even then it is obliged to use outside rented space for storage of material and finished stock.
Through these years there have been many changes of personnel in ownership and management, but the growth has been continuously progressive. In 1873, Mr. J.C. Forman, since deceased, entered the firm, and the sign read Short & Forman. Mr. C. O. Bassett, father of the present president of the Company, was admitted to the firm in 1874, with H.W. Munhall and J.W. Kagey. This partnership continued until the plant was destroyed by fire in 1891.
Immediately after the fire the business was reorganized as the Forman-Bassett-Hatch Company, and forged ahead rapidly, achieving a reputation for high-class book and catalog printing. In 1912, the firm name was changed to the Forman-Bassett Company, with the same aggressive and progressive management that had marked its previous history.
Thus from the scorn of the little side issue of stationery and printing has grown the great oak of a complete printing business and stationery factory that is known all over the United States because it refused to grow old, but was always among the foremost to adopt every improvement of value and to test new ideas and prove them out.
It was the passing of the hand press and entry of the foot-power jobber. It was the smaller presses superseded by the original cylinder presses and their eclipse by the modern two-revolution cylinders with automatic feeders.
It was the growth of machine composition and the development of the Monotype, with its Non-Distribution System, and the anniversary issue of the News-Leader gives prominent place to the Monotype and its work as emancipator of the composing room.
The men who set the pace for the Forman-Bassett Co. have passed on, but their sons and grandson are still maintaining their ideal of “service” and keeping the business young. They are: president, L.B. Bassett, son of C. O. Bassett; vice-president, J.C. Forman, grandson of J.C. Forman; secretary, W.J. Petty, and treasurer, E.H. Schneider.
For a printing concern to continue in business for eighty-five years and maintain a spirit of progressiveness is in itself meritorious. TO keep abreast of the invention of improved machinery and methods and receive with open arms the really valuable is still more praiseworthy.
The men who guided the fortunes of the Forman-Bassett Company were always awake to the importance of the properly equipped composing room, and when the time came to install machine composition to relieve the shortcomings of the old system they selected Monotypes. Here is what they say on this subject in the anniversary issue:
“What machines to put in was thoroughly discussed. It is not a reflection on any of those suggested to say that the very best on the market for the kind of work produced from this office and all high-class book catalog and advertising literature was chosen when the officers decided to install the Monotype.”
“The executives say without reservation that it is absolutely the best machine of its kind on the market.”