Bassett Family Association Database

Sarah C. Day

Female 1839 - 1921  (82 years)


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  • Name Sarah C. Day 
    Born 1839  Sturgis, Michigan Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Female 
    Died 27 Jul 1921 
    Notes 
    • 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.
    Person ID I09479  1A William Bassett of Plymouth
    Last Modified 23 Sep 2011 

    Father Rev. Gershom Bulkley Day,   d. 1852 
    Relationship Natural 
    Mother Elizabeth Benjamin,   d. Deceased 
    Relationship Natural 
    Family ID F04041  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family William Henry Bassett,   b. Abt 1832, Pennsylvania Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 1886  (Age ~ 54 years) 
    Married 1867  St. Joseph County, Michigan Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F04040  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart