Homer Franklin Bassett descends from #6B William Bassett of Connecticut as follows:
William Bassett and wife Hannah (Dickerman) Ives
John Bassett (b. 1652) and Mercy Todd
Joseph Bassett (b. 1697) and wife Miriam Bradley
Abel Bassett (b. 1728) and wife Miriam
Lemuel Bassett and wife Patience Walter
Ezra Bassett (b. 1774) and wife Sarah Blodgett
Ezra Bassett (b. 1799) and wife Keziah Witt
Homer Franklin Bassett (b. 1826)
Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 2, 1902
Homer F. Bassett Dead
Well Known Entomologist and Former Resident of Rockport
Special to the Plain Dealer
WATERBURY, Ct., July 1 – Homer F. Bassett, a former citizen of Rockport, O., died here today, aged seventy-six years. He was educator at Berea and Oberlin college, settling in Rockport on a farm. His winters were spent in teaching in Ohio and his summers upon his Rockport farm. He was a noted entomologist and author of several standard works on this branch of science.
Homer Franklin Bassett, picture for sale on ebay
The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography
Bassett, Homer Franklin, librarian, was born at Florida, Berkshire co., Mass., Sept. 2, 1826, son of Ezra and Keziah (Witt) Bassett. When he was ten years old he removed with his parents to Ohio and settled on a farm in Rockport. He worked on the farm until he was twenty years old, enjoying limited school advantages, although by working to pay his expenses while at school he spent a few terms at the Berea Seminary. Later he was a student in the College Preparatory School at Oberlin for nearly a year. Overwork, however, obliged him not only to leave the school a few weeks before the end of the year, but forced him to give up his long cherished plan of taking a college course. In 1849, when leaving Oberlin, he managed to exchange some recently purchased college text-books for a copy of “Wood’s Botany”. This simple act proved to be a turning point in his life. The book opened to him a new world, and the study of botany and kindred branches of natural history from that time occupied the leisure hours of a busy life. His health remaining poor, he spent the next summer in western Massachusetts, and in the fall visited relatives in Connecticut. Here he was urged to teach the winter school in a small district in the town of Wolcott. This was the beginning of his work as a teacher. He spent sixteen years in the schoolroom, the last eight in a large private school in Waterbury, Conn. About 1862 he began the study of insect life, confining himself almost entirely to the gall-producing insects of the Hymenoptera and Cynipidae. He discovered and described a large number of species, and learned several interesting and important facts regarding their habits. When the Silas Bronson Library was founded in 1870 he applied for the position of librarian. Mr. W.I. Fletcher was appointed, however, as having a prior claim, but when he resigned in August, 1872, Mr. Bassett was asked to take his place. He found in the Bronson library in 1872, about 13,000 volumes. These he rearranged, catalogued, and classified to the gratification of the board of regents and the public, and instituted many reforms in the conduct of the routine management. The original building in which the books were kept being much too small, a new library building was erected and occupied in 1894. During his service as librarian, the number of volumes increased to nearly 100,000. Yale University graduated him M.A. in 1894. Mr. Bassett was married three times: (1) May 1, 1848, to Sarah A. Tomlinson; (2) Apr. 8, 1855, to Lovina Alcott; (3) July 17, 1884, to Margaret D. Judd. He was the father of two daughters, Antoinette Alcott and Helen Margaret Bassett. He died in Waterbury, Conn., June 28, 1902.