| Notes |
- Bulletin - Wilton, Connecticut
January 30, 1991
Bassett Knew Success Despite Illness
By George S. Weston
His father, Benjamin F. Bassett, Yale College, B.A., 1847, M.D., 1852, was a practicing physician in Brooklyn, New York, until compelled by ill health to retire, and he spent the last few years of his life in Wilton on the property on the easterly side of the Danbury-Norwalk Road just south of the Lambert house, familiarly known to us as the Folson place, now owned by the Sisters of the Annunciation.
He had married Mary Louise How, widow of Lewis How, who had two daughters, Minnie and Anna How. Her maiden name was Brush, daughter of Joseph Brush, a merchant of Cos Cob.
Minnie How married Henry Gieser, and Anna married Rinaldo Jones, and it is their daughter, Louise E. Jones, wife of Morris Norton Benedict, now residing in Wilton, I am indebted for much of this information. Mrs. Gieser is living in Cos Cob and is 82 years old. Mrs. Jones died in the Bassett home in Wilton in August 1888, the year of the great blizzard.
Dr. and Mrs. Bassett had two children, both born in Wilton, Lottie L. and Samuel Eliot. Lottie entered Wilton Academy in 1881, married Ferris Morgan and resided in the house on the Wolf Pit Road, near the railroad, now owned by George Foote.
Samuel Bassett
Samuel was born on August 11, 1873, seventh in direct line from Robert Bassett who came to New Haven Colony about 1647. His father died in 1875. He first entered Kent School under David Hurlbutt, described as a young man of exceptional ability as a teacher. Then, in 1886, he entered Wilton Academy, where for more than a generation, Edward Olmstead, Yale, 1845/1846, had "impressed the stamp of a strong character and a strong dislike of slovenly work" upon the boys and girls of this town and others far and near.
At the age of 16, when he was almost ready to enter Yale, he suffered from a severe attack of pneumonia, which left his health so precarious that he gave up hope of going to college and spent the next four years, 1889-1893, on the farm in Wilton. By this time, he was reasonably strong and healthy so that he entered Hopkins Grammar School, New Haven, where his father and uncles had preceded him and finished his preparation for college, entering Yale in the class of 1898. That year, 1894, his mother died.
"In college", he wrote, "the thorough preparation and above all, the ideals of Edward Olmstead, stood me in good stead," and, I might add, from what I have learned, that the friendship and good advice of Miss Alice B. Olmstead, in whose Sunday School class he was for many years, urged him on also.
He graduated at the head of his class and won the Ten Eyck prize at the junior exhibition. His success in the latter competition led to his election as class orator at his graduation. He was also elected undergraduate president of Phi Beta Kappa and to membership in Alpha Delta Phi.
Teacher of Greek
His family had intended that he should enter the Congregational Ministry as his uncle, William E. Bassett, Yale, 1850, had done. But from the time when he began Xenophon's Anabasis in Wilton Academy, he had resolved to make the teaching of Greek his life work. Immediately after graduation, therefore, he entered Yale Graduate School, where he spent two years, 1898-1900, as a Macy Fellow in the study of Greek and Greek archaeology. In June, 1900, he went to Europe to continue his studies as a Soldiers Memorial Fellow of Yale.
He spent the first summer at the University of Berlin and in September, went to Athens as a student in the American School of Classical Studies there. Becoming interested in Greco-Roman lamps, and having won a fellowship in the school for the following years, he spent the summer of 1901, after visiting the Troad and Constantinople, in studying the ancient lamps in the large and small museums of Austria, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and Sicily and took courses during the summer at the University of Freiburg in Breisgau.
After spending the years 1901-1902 at the School at Athens, he returned to the United States by way of London and witnessed the coronation of Edward VII. Then he taught Greek at Yale for three years as instructor and tutor. He was the last instructor at Yale to hold one of the four traditional tutorships, these being abolished in 1905.
His interest in Homer was stimulated by study under the great American Homerist, Thomas Day Seymour. On returning to America, he had turned from archaeology to philology and his doctor's thesis in 1905 was on a Homeric subject. The same summer he received a call to the professorship of Greek in the University of Vermont, which institution he continued to serve for 31 years.
Typhoid Victim
He was prominent in many associations and societies in connection with his life work, although he was badly handicapped by illness. In 1907-1908, he suffered from a very severe attack of typhoid fever and never really regained normal health. In 1915, he became the victim of a chronic malady which made him an invalid with gradually decreasing strength for his remaining years; but in spite of this, he did an immense amount of work and was the center of interest to his colleagues.
On December 23, 1936 he was to have left for Berkeley, California, on a six month's leave of absence to fill his appointment as Sather professor of classical studies at the University of California, for which he had prepared eight lectures, principally on Homer. He died at his home, 295 South Prospect Street, Burlington, Vermont, on December 21, 1936, beloved and esteemed by his associates.
In 1903, he had married Bertha Raymond of New Haven, who survived him with three children, Raymond Eliot Bassett of Stowe, Vermont; Mrs. George I. Hager of Burlington; and Thomas Day Seymour Bassett, then a graduate student at the University of California; and three grandchildren, Mary Hagar of Burlington, and Ruth Alice and Nancy Bassett of Stowe.
Mr. and Mrs. Ferris Morgan (nee Lottie Bassett) had two children: Grace, now living in Mount Vernon, New York; and Eliot of Brewster, New York. Neither of them, I understand, married.
Professor Bassett taught Greek and archaeology during the summers of 1913 and 1914 in the summer sessions of Columbia University.
He was a member of the American Philological Association of which he was president in 1924; of the Linguistic Society of America; of the American Association of University Professors; of the Classical Association of Great Britain; of the New England Classical Association, of which he had been vice president.
He had been a member of the managing committee of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens for more than 20 years, and had been, since 1918, the chairman of its Committee on Fellowships and recently he had been appointed a member of the North American Committee of Friendship and Cooperation with Greece.
He was for several years president of the College Street Church Society, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha Delta Phi, Eta Sigma Phi and an honorary member of Delta Psi of the University of Vermont. During the last year, he was elected a member of the Century Club.
He has published more than 100 articles, notes, reviews. He was especially interested in Homer, and his most important published work was on the style, meter and composition of the Homeric poems. In his attitude towards the Homeric question he was a strong Unitarian.
The Free Press, Burlington, Vermont, of December 22, 1936, contained an obituary and an editorial on "a scholar and a gentleman".
Samuel E. Bassett
Burlington, Vermont - December 21 (AP)
Boston Herald, December 22, 1936
Professor Samuel E. Bassett, 60, head of the Greek department at the University of Vermont and a former president of the American Phiilological Society, died today.
He was to leave this week to lecture as professor of classical studies at the University of California.
He was graduated in 1898 from Yale, where he later received his doctor's degree. He instructed at Yale from 1902 to 1905, when he came here. He authored many classical journals.
He leaves a widow, two sons and a daughter.
The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography
(Picture included)
Bassett, Samuel Eliot, Hellenic scholar, was born at Wilton, Connecticut, August 11, 1873, son of Benjamin Franklin and Mary Louisa (Brush) Bassett, and a descendant of Robert Bassett, a native of England, who came to the New Haven colony in 1647. From Robert and his wife Mary, the line continued through their son Robert and his wife Elizabeth Riggs; Samuel and Deborah Bennett; Benjamin and Mary Hinman, and John and Nancy Atwater Lee, the grandparents of Samuel E. Bassett. His father was a physician. The son received his preparatory education at the Wilton (Connecticut) academy and the Hopkins grammar school, New Haven, Connecticut, and was graduated B.A. at Yale university in 1898. He held the Waterman scholarship at Yale, was orator and valedictorian of his class and under-graduate president of Phi Beta Kappa. During 1898-1901, as holder of the Macy and Soldiers' memorial graduate fellowships, he pursued post-graduate studies at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the universities of Berlin and Freiberg, and in 1901-1902 was again a fellow at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Returning to the United States in the latter year, he became an instructor and later a tutor in Greek at Yale university, from which he received a Ph.D. degree in 1905. In the same year he was appointed professor of Greek language and literature at the University of Vermont, which position he held until his death. In 1912 and 1914 he taught Greek and archaelogy at the summer sessions of Columbia university. He was invited in 1933 to deliver the Sather lectures scheduled for 1937 at the University of California. These were in order before his death and were later published in book form under the title of "Poetry of Homer" (1938). In 1931-1932 he was visiting professor at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. A recognized authority on Greek, particularly Homer, he contributed over one hundred articles to the "American Journal of Archaeology", "American Journal of Philology", "Classical Philology", "Classical Journal", "Classical Weekly", "Sewanee Review", and "Classical Quarterly" and "Classical Review" (British). From 1905 until his death Bassett was a member of the managing committee and during 1920-1936 he was chairman of the fellowships committee of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. He was a member of the American Philological Association (president, 1923-1924), Linguistic Society of America, Archaeological Institute of America, American Association of University Professors, Classical Association of Great Britain, New England Classical Association, Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha Delta Phi, Eta Sigma Phi, Delta Psi (of the University of Vermont; honorary), the Green Mountain, Ethan Allen and Vermont Yale (president, 1913) clubs of Burlington, Vermont and the Century Club of New York city. Bassett loved the out-of-doors. As a young man he loved walking and mountain climbing. During his years abroad he traveled a great deal on his bicycle, thus seeing much of the country which would not have been possible in any other way. Generous, kind and loyal, he could always find something good in every one and made it a rule to speak only of the good. In religion he was a Congregationalist. He was married in New Haven, Connecticut, June 18, 1903, to Bertha May, daughter of Edward Judd Raymond, of that city, and they had three children: Raymond Eliot; Catherine Brewster, wife of George Ingersoll Hagar 2d, and Thomas Day Seymour Bassett. He died at Burlington, Vermont, December 21, 1936.
|
Bassett Family Association Database
1873 - 1936 (63 years)