George Barclay Bassett descends from William Bassett of Plymouth as follows:
William Bassett and wife Elizabeth
William Bassett (b. 1624) and wife Mary Raynesford
William Bassett (b. 1656) and wife Rachel Williston
William Bassett (b. 1680) and wife Abigail Bourne
Elisha Bassett (b. 1714) and wife Ruahamah Jennings
Lot Bassett (b. 1755) and wife Deborah Howes
Francis Edward Bassett (b. 1796) and wife Mehitable Ford
Charles Ralph Bassett (b. 1836) and wife Elvira Rogers
George Barclay Bassett (b. 1861) and wife Anna Kingman
The Buffalo Evening News, Friday, April 15, 1955
George B. Bassett Dies at 93;
Founded Buffalo Meter Co.
Manufacturer Built Nationally-Known Company
From Ground Up; Was Active in Civic Affairs
George Barclay Bassett, founder of the Buffalo Meter Co. and one of Buffalo’s most distinguished senior citizens, died Thursday evening (April 14, 1955) in his home at 270 Depew Ave. He was 93.
A healthy constitution, an agile mind and a lively interest in day-to-day affairs spared him, until the past few weeks, from the inevitable infirmities of old age. Long after he entered his 90s he took his daily walk, and was up and around until the last few days.
Life in Buffalo began for Mr. Bassett at the age of 25 when he came here from Watertown with his brother, Edward W., to establish Bassett Bros., a company which designed and built 53 waterworks in Western New York.
Company Started in 1892
After six years, Edward forsook the engineering and contracting business in favor of the law and went to New York, where he was to distinguish himself as a representative in Congress and – in originating the city’s first zoning plan – as “the father of zoning in the Unites States.”
Building waterworks started George B. Bassett on the trail of a simpler and more practical water meter – an ide3a he fussed around with for years until on Oct. 1, 1892, he started the Buffalo Meter Co.
That day he trudged up to a third-floor loft he rented at 363 Washington St., across from the rear of old Hotel Iroquois, and was in business.
Now Used in 2500 Communities
It was a business that was to grow to a point where the company’s meters are used in more than 2500 communities in the United States. It was to be expanded to take in all kinds of liquid meters, including oil and gasoline, and measuring apparatus for such materials as sulphuric acid, molten chocolate and asphalt.
The company made fuel-oil meters for naval and commercial vessels in World War I, and during World War II was selected by the Government as the only meter concern to remain exclusively in the manufacture of liquid meters. In this period it made meters for more than 600 naval ships and more than 1000 commercial vessels, as well as for war industries.
From its humble beginning on Washington St., the meter company was moved by Mr. Bassett to 290 Terrace in 1903. In 1917 he built the present plant on a 9 acres site at 2917 Main St.
The Early Years
It took hard work to bring the company to a leading position. Mr. Bassett recalled its early years when he alternated at “hitting the road” on selling trips and taking a turn on the bench making meters.
It was a proud day for the young manufacturer when he shipped his first order for water meters to the Village of Bath, April 7, 1893.
From the beginning he commanded the loyal co-operation of his employes. When he decided to erect a new plant he asked veteran employes their choice of location and built on it.
He gave liberally in time to the city of his adoption. For 30 years he was a director of the Children’s Aid Society, which he also served as treasurer. For nearly as long he was a director of the YMCA.
A Story That He Told
He also was an organizer of the Main Street Association and a veteran of Buffalo Rotary.
Mr. Bassett and Miss Anna Kingman of Palmyra were married in 1891. They lived for many years in a spacious brown brick home at 6 91 West Ferry St. which he designed. Gardening was her hobby and she laid out a beautiful formal garden in the rear of their house. They spent every Summer for 40 years at Bay Beach.
Mrs. Bassett died in March, 1941. There years later, Mr. Bassett gave the 15-room house and adjoining lot to Westminster Presbyterian Church as a manse for its minister.
Dr. and Mrs. Albert G. Butzer have since made a tradition each year of picking the garden’s first peonies, which were Mrs. Bassett’s favorite, and presenting them to Mr. Bassett in her memory.
Interested in City Planning
Mr. Bassett was a life elder of Westminister Presbyterian Church. His son, Robert S. Bassett, is a member of the church’s Board of Trustees and his son, Charles K. Bassett, is former treasurer of the church.
He early became interested in city planning, recalling an anecdote he told of his early years.
“I remember when I first came to Buffalo – I went into the old Genesee Hotel and asked where I could find the finest part of the city. The clerk told me to take a green Allen St. car to the Circle, then walk to Delaware and North. I did that and was much impressed by the beauty of the spot.”
His civic interest led him to become a member of the City Planning Commission and a director of the Buffalo City Planning Association.
Of Old Colonial Stock
He felt that the entrance to Buffalo along the lake shore was not properly utilized and suggesting extending Delaware Ave. to the waterfront and setting aside space between Delaware Ave. and Main St. for a transportation plaza. He was a tree-lover and while he was the necessity of widening streets, he advocated planting trees inside the sidewalk lines.
Mr. Bassett was born in Ballston Spa, June 17, 1861, the day of the Battle of Bull Run. He was descended from old colonial stock, seven of his ancestors having come to Plymouth on the Mayflower. He was ninth in the line from the progenitor of the family in this country.
He acquired his early education in the Brooklyn and Watertown public schools, but soon made up his mind that high school was no place that interested him.
The Woolworth Beginnings
In Watertown he got a job in a drug store – “sort of a porter’s job” – and earned $3 a week. He confessed in later years he did in mainly to keep out of school and avoid Latin and Greek which he detested.
Next door to the drug store was Moore & Smith’s, a store which dealt in notions. The managing clerk was F.W. Woolworth, who made $10 a week. Another employe was Woolworth’s cousin, Seymour H. Knox, who worked part time for $8 per week.
They had an unusual idea, Mr. Bassett used to recall. They put tables down the middle of the store, everything on the first table being $1, the second 75 cents, down to 10 cents and 5 cents.
“I always noticed that the 10-cent and 5-cent tables were empty,” Mr. Bassett said. “People bought the stuff quickly. That was the beginning of the 5-and-10 enterprise.”
Studied at Yale
Mr. Bassett began his engineering career with Hinds & Moffett in Watertown in 1879, learning it through apprenticeship. He spent a year study in hydraulics and bridge-building in the Sheffield School at Yale, and inasmuch as he had some experience was pressed into service as assistant instructor in the junior class in land surveying.
After seven additional years of work with engineers in Watertown he came to Buffalo.
In an interview with The Buffalo Evening News in 1941, Mr. Bassett casually revealed that an idea he had when a young man working for Hinds & Moffett later became a potent factor in development of Niagara Falls hydro-electric power.
His Niagara Falls Idea
At that time his company was considering building a tunnel under the flume of the Black River. A new calendar arrived in the office with a picture of Niagara Falls, showing the long flat land above the Falls.
“It came to me,” recalled Mr. Bassett, “that a tunnel under that land might be the solution to Jacob Schoellkopf’s problem.
“Mr. Schoellkopf had taken over the water-power development in 1878 and had built seven mills, all located on the brink of the Falls. He had a hydraulic canal from which the mills drew their water, but obviously the power was drawn only at the point of fall and the space at the brink was limited.”
Mr. Bassett’s idea was to run a tunnel under the flat land for a mile or more. Then new mills could be erected on the land drawing water from the surface canal and providing the drop themselves, the water being used to turn the wheels and turbines and then being discharged into the tunnel below.
New Took Credit
He became obsessed with the idea and, having business in Syracuse, made a special trip to Rochester to discuss it with Thomas Evershed, division engineer on the Erie Canal.
Histories of the falls and its power developments divulge that Mr. Evershed suggested the tunnel idea to the Schoellkopf interests and that it materialized and made possible the first large-scale development of the falls waterpower. It became known as the Evershed Tunnel.
Mr. Bassett modestly never took credit for the tunnel but passed it along to Evershed, who pushed it to final achievement.
Mr. Bassett was past president of the Engineering Societies of Buffalo and Western New York.
On Hospital Board
He was a member of the Buffalo Club, the Buffalo Athletic Club, the Mercer Club, Sons of the American Revolution, the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, the Buffalo Library Association and the Buffalo Canoe Club.
Mr. Bassett was a member of the Millard Fillmore Hospital board of directors from 1911 until 1949, serving as president in 1921 and chairman of the Building Committee in 1927.
He is survived by two sons, Charles K. and Robert S. Bassett. Robert joined the company in 1916 as treasurer, became general manager in 1926 and president in 1945 on his father’s retirement. Charles K. started his career with Buffalo Meter in 1914 and has been vice president and secretary since 1916, except for Army service in 1917-1918.
Also surviving is a sister, Mrs. Mary B. Harrington, who resided with Mr. Bassett; 8 great children and 10 great grandchildren.
Memorial services conducted by Dr. Butzer will be held at 3 o’clock tomorrow afternoon in Forest Lawn Chapel with interment in Forest Lawn.
George Barclay Bassett