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- Sioux County History, First 100 Years 1886-1986
Sarah C. Day Bassett (includes picture)
Sarah C. Day Bassett was an early Baptist home missionary, the first
in Sioux County, and a significant figure in many lives at that time.
Beginning in 1886, for years she held religious meetings tirelessly wherever a
building was available. Her dedication to relieving suffering in homes was
remarkable. James. H. Cook has written that when drought and grasshoppers were
severe, "at one time in this county there was such suffering among the
homesteaders that adjoining states sent in help", Mrs. Bassett we
homes with acute sickness or destitution, and stayed for several weeks, as
long as her help was needed. She cooked, washed, ironed, cleaned and cared for
the children and the sick; she gave food and clothing out of the boxes and
barrels that came from the Baptist Home Missionary Society. She lived with the
utmost personal frugality, never considering her own comfort.
There was more than a hint of fanaticism as she went about her work.
Her friends were expected to contribute to her mission, whether by furnishing
team and buggy, as James Cook died, or by allowing her to appropriate t
small things her friends had that she felt the destitute needed. Having been
reared in extreme frugality, her eccentricities took a petty turn that was at
time disconcerting.
Nevertheless she did great good. Sometimes she lent money to the
deserving. She sent three young men through college while she lived in
Harrison. One was E.A. Weir, whose medical education she financed. Dr. Weir
returned to Harrison, and practiced medicine there for years. Both Mrs.
Bassett and her sister, M.E. Day Trobridge, were graduates of the Bapti
College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and understood the value of an educatio
There was inherited money, which Mrs. Bassett never ceased to use for t
benefit of others. Mrs. Browbridge with her husband owned the Baptist
Christian Herald, a large paper at that time. In that, Mrs. Bassett also held
an interest.
Born Sarah C. Day in 1839, in Sturgis, Michigan, she was the daughter
of a pioneer Baptist minister, the Rev. Gershom Bulkley Day. He was shot by
Indians in 1852, while preaching to gold miners in California, in the gold
rush days. His wife, the former Elizabeth Benjamin, was descended from Sir
Francis Drake, through Drake's brother, Joseph.
In 1867, Sarah C. Day married Henry Bassett. He had been an ear
salesman for the first sewing machines in Nebraska. Later he was divisi
superintendent of the freight firm of Majors, Russell and Waddell. Henry
Bassett died in Cheyenne in 1886. After his death, a friend, Mrs. Ma
Graham of Agate, invited Mrs. Bassett to come to the ranch to make her home.
Mrs. Bassett was then appointed a home missionary, and began her work, often
using Agate as her base. At one time, she homesteaded a section of land near
the headquarters of Agate, land that is now part of the ranc
In later life, she lived at Andrews, favoring that spot because it was
handy to the railroad and hence convenient for shipping her missionary
barrels. James Cook owned a small house at Andrews, used as a place to stay
overnight when shipping cattle. This house was made available for Mrs.
Bassett's use. There she continued her mission, often putting up strangers
traveling through for the night. And it was there, on July 27, 1921, that a
sudden cloudburst brought a flood down the White River, and swept her away,
with the house, in the night.
Early Days in Sioux County, Nebraska History
Vol IV July-September, 1921 No. III
Among the strong characters remembered by the editor from his eight
years' residence at Chadron (1888-96) is Mrs. C.D. Bassett of Harrison. At the
beginning of that time the conflict between the free range cattlemen, whose
herds had run on the splendid open range for a decade, and the "Grangers," as
the homesteading settlers were called, was at its height. In vain the
experienced ranchers told the land-hungry homesteaders that Sioux County was
"no farming country." There stretched the splendid smooth sections of gramma
grass. There was the Pine Ridge covered with pine trees for log cabins. There
were the canyons and valleys with gushing springs and clear flowing streams.
And there was Uncle Sam offering a free homestead for five years' residence.
Nothing could stop the homesteader. He went for that land. A
crown his courage kindly Providence in 1889 sent rains the summer long. Such
crops of wheat and corn and vegetables were harvested by the homesteade
where the ranch men told them it never rained after the Fourth of July. So the
homesteaders captured the county government from the ranchmen and drove the
cattle from the free range. And then came the Drought!
In this period the fame of Mrs. Bassett, the missionary merchant of
Harrison, traveled far in the northwest. A letter written to secure certain
early papers belonging to her husband's freighting experience brings the
following letter from 31 East 22nd Street, Portland, Orego
I am the daughter of a Baptist minister, Rev. Gershom Buckley Day, who
settled in Sturgis, Michigan, in the fall of 1836, doing pioneer missionary
work.
Everybody was poor and a great deal of sickness made it impossible for
the people to give needed aid to the missionary. My mother was heir according
to English law, of Sir Francis Drake through his senior brother Joseph. She
with her needle supported the family for 13 years except the pittance
contributed by the people. In 1849 gold was discovered in California. At that
time there was no machinery and only placer digging could be engaged in.
Father said he could do as much good preaching to the miners as anywhere and
could prospect for gold during the week. He decided to go to California in
order to make money enough to support his family and educate his two
daughters. There were no church buildings and the California Indians saw the
congregations who gathered in the open to hear him preach, thought him a white
chief talking against them so they planned to watch when they might find him
alone and killed him in 1852.
W.H. Bassett and I were married in 1867. In 1884 he contracted
tuberculosis and died in 1886. His life was of much interest as he was engaged
in freighting for the government for many years between Nebraska City a
Pacific coast points. His diaries were burned with all his effects in Nebraska
City, thus losing the records of an eventful life. Though not converted until
after our marriage he was a moral man and in hiring his men required them to
sign a contract not to use vulgar language or profanity, nor to abuse their
animals under penalty of discharge, which at that time would have been serious
on the uninhabited prairie.
Mr. Alexander Majors, of the firm, Majors, Russell and Waddell, with
whom he was associated in the freighting business came to see him just before
he died and the meeting was a touching scene like the meeting of a father and
a son. The strenuous physical and nervous strain of his illness of twenty-
three months impaired my health so that I was having night sweats and every
indication of a permanent decline, when an estimable woman friend, Mrs. E.B.
Graham, invited me to come to Nebraska and make my home with them at their
ranch.
Nebraska offered good opportunities for loaning money and a friend in
Sturgis, Michigan, wished me to loan a thousand dollars for her. I deposited
it in the bank at Harrison until a favorable opportunity offered. The bank
became involved, so the only way I could save the deposit was to buy the
store with which it was connected. I secured two excellent helpers of ability
and integrity, Mr. Conrad Lindeman and E.A. Weir, the latter a young man about
nineteen.
In this new town when some of the cattlemen would return from having
sold their stock in Omaha and have a spree they were determined that every man
in town should join them. Those who did not drink were obliged to hide. One
hid under the steps of the depot, another ran into my store through the back
room, jumped out through the window and escaped through the darkness out on
the broad prairie. If discovered they would be dragged to the saloon and
compelled to drink.
The store was quite large and had living rooms at the back which I
occupied. The clerks slept in the store when all was quiet. But the 4th of
July, or any public day, was always an occasion for a spree. My clerks gladly
consented on such occasions to my suggestion to sleep in my apartment and I
would don a wrapper and sleep under the counter in the store.
Whenever I think of the early Harrison days, two pictures persist in
presenting themselves. One 5th of July morning one of the carousers got the
hotel dinner bell and came ringing it vigorously to the store for my me
After he had persistently rattled the front for some time I got up and went to
the door. When he saw me he ran as if an evil demon was trying to catch him.
On another occasion some once came to the west door. The store was on a corner
and had two entrances. I was sleeping near the south door. I stepped out to
inquire what was wanted. I went to the corner of the building and was
surprised to find a man in his night attire. He, too, ran when he hea
woman's voice. The bitter feeling of the liquor element expressed itself in
threats, so friends told me never to step out doors after dark alone, that I
was in danger of bodily harm on account of my temperance principles. This was
in the early days of free range when there were no fences and cattle roamed at
will over the public land.
A short time prior to this a young school teacher was married and came
to western Nebraska stopping for a little while at Hay Springs before settling
in Harrison. Hay Springs if possible was then more wild than Harriso
Harrison they took a claim and lived in a shack made of lumber with cracks
that one could stick their fingers through which was all right in nice
weather.
A little daughter came to this house and the mother endured much
suffering with bealed breasts. No milk could be secured for the baby who died
of starvation. There was no cemetery and the little one was buried on t
claim near Harrison. When an effort was made later to have the remains removed
to the cemetery no trace of them could be found. Thus the little body rests
beneath the wild flowers awaiting the awakening trump of the resurrecti
morn. There was no doctor at Harrison at this time. Water was hauled in
barrels for family use. A rancher from over twenty miles away saw the house,
called for a drink and found the woman in this pitiful condition. He told her
he had a brother who was a doctor and he would send him to her. The doctor
relieved her greatly and a year ago the lady told me she thought Dr. E.
Graham saved her life at that time.
Having been a Bible class teacher in Michigan I organized a class in
Harrison and conducted religious services from time to time in the hall. At
the close of one of these services the only cyclone that has ever been known
in Harrison seemed to start just west of the town. It consisted of two columns
each about as large as a barrel, which moved slowly eastward until it came to
Main street, when it turned south and followed the fleeing citizens who were
running from it at a right angle from where they first saw it. Afterwards one
of the men said: "I glanced back and the thing was just following us." In its
path stood a small house made of lumber. It was torn into splinters. The cook
stove was carried nearly half a mile and the stove pipe, table and chairs,
broken and carried farther. The chickens were killed, their feathers picked
off and scattered.
I had just concluded a religious service in the hall which w
stairs at the four corners of the town. There came a little dash of rain with
large drops so I waited to see if there was going to be more rain. Everybody
else had gone. I stood looking out of the west window when I saw it start and
watched it progress and demolish the building above referred to, I said to
myself, "The Lord can take care of me here just as well as anywhere." I watched
it approach, there was every indication that the building I was in would be
wrecked. Then it turned south. I did not experience fear. I seemed to have the
assurance that the Lord would take care of me even if the building was razed.
Many incidents occurred from time to time while the town was so new,
viz.: When savage Indians were reported on their way to Harrison. This was a
night of terror everybody expecting before morning the horrors of a massacre.
The rumor proved false and the tension was relieved the following da
The Sioux tableland is fine. Good people have been attracted to
Harrison, because of its healthful climate. The better element prevails and
now it is a pleasant town with modern homes, good lawns and beautiful flowers.
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