| Notes |
- According to his grandson, George H. Bassett, "William Bassett died in
the year 1842 in Licking County, Ohio, and was buried in a rural cemete
about a mile north of a point on what was known as the old Columbus road
twenty miles east of Columbus, Ohio. He moved to New York about 1808 or
1810 where he remained until about the year 1835 when he came to Ohio."
Narrative written by George Bassett
My grandfather, William Bassett, was a native of Martha's Vineyard,
and I have been told that generations of the family before him were bor
lived and died on the same island. My grandfather had a large family. T
names that I know of his children were: Peras; Clement; Nathan; William and
Polly. There were other children whose names I do not know. One son, Peras,
moved to Wisconsin when he was a young man. A daughter married a George
Hillman and with him went to Green Bay, Wisconsin sixty years ago or more.
Nathan Bassett was a sailor. He has one son now living at Fort Wayne, Ind.,
named William H. Bassett, and another son, M.M. Bassett now living in Muncie,
Ind. In Michigan there are Bassetts living at Detroit, at Kalamazoo, at
Alligan, at Cadillac and Cedar Springs. Dick Bassett, an eccentric character,
who served in the Union Army in the war of 1861, now lives alone on an island
in Grand Traverse Bay, a few miles from Traverse City, Mich. His island is not
shown on any U.S. government maps and is therefore his property by right of
possession. I have met several of these Michigan Bassetts, and all of them
have the same traditional history of the family, viz: that a family of
Bassetts came to America about the year 1620, some say on the Mayflower, and
settled in what is now the state of Massachusetts, and that all the Bassetts
in the United States descended from that family.
Fifty five or sixty years ago a Benjamin Bassett, a lawyer, I think,
whose home was in Cincinnati, Ohio, and who was an old man at that time, used
to visit my father. He was a friend and associate of Gen. Wm. H. Harrison who
claimed relationship with him, Harrison's mother being a Basset
My grandfather was by trade a tailor, and I now have in my possession
the wrought iron goose he used in his shop, which was made about the ye
1700, as it had been in use a hundred years or more at the time my father and
mother were married. I also have an old table fork of about the same age that
belonged to my great grandfather Ellis, and a button worn on his coat through
the wars of the revolution and 1812 by Elijah Skeel, my great grandfather. I
also have a Methodist Discipline, printed in the year 1808, which was t
property of Cephas Skeels.
My father, William Bassett, was a millwright, and was a man of great
strength and courage. In proof of the latter there are those now living who
saw him carry a full grown live wild wolf in this arms without its being bound
or muzzled.
I know but little of the family history of Joshua Lee, my stepfather.
His father was an officer in the American army in the war of the revolution,
and he once told me that he and Gen. R.E. Lee, of the Confederate army, were
cousins in the second degree.
My wife's maiden name was Alice Randolph. She was born in Allegheney
County, New York, where her father, Jonathan F. Randolph, was born. Her
grandfather, Micah F. Randolph, was born at New Brunswick, New Jersey, where
he married a woman by the name of Runyon, and from which place he came to the
State of New York about the year 1820. There are many of the Randolphs and
Runyons in New Brunswick, N.J. yet, and Theodore F. Randolph, who was governor
of the state of New Jersey and afterwards U.S. Senator from that state, was a
resident of that place and was a cousin of my father-in-law. John Randolph, of
Roanoke, Va. was related to the same family.
Should an person into whose hands this may fall know anything of
interest about any belonging to those families mentioned, let them plea
write it out and attach it to this record, as if it is thus kept up and in the
family it will in the future be a very interesting documen
I send a copy of this family record, and also a copy of the narrative
of my own life, to my brother, Gilbert B. Bassett, with the request that it
descend to his son, George H. and that the same be kept by the male
descendants of Gilbert B. Bassett. One copy I send to Mrs. Margaret A. Patton,
my sister, to be kept in her family, and one copy I keep myself. I reserve the
right to call for either of these copies at any time if the one I have should be
destroyed or lost.
Signed,
George H. Bassett
Reed City, Michigan
May 30th, 1896.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1770 - Deceased