Bassett Family Association Database

Howard W. Bassett

Male 1906 - 1988  (~ 82 years)


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  • Name Howard W. Bassett 
    Born About 1906 
    Gender Male 
    Died May 1988 
    Notes 
    • The New Haven Register, Connecticut, Sunday, May 15, 1988
      Howard Bassett: Hiker at rest along the trail he loved best

      They "buried" Howard Bassett last Wednesday. Thirty of his friends gathered on the Quinnipiac Trail in Prospect - at a section which he personally maintained for many years - and they scattered his ashes.

      It was pouring rain but his friends stood there, on the banks of one of Bassett's favorite streams, near the small wooden bridge he had built across it, and they spoke about him in an informal eulogy.

      What could you say about this remarkable man? You might note that he ran away from home when he was 14, leaving New Haven to become a cowboy, hopping onto freight trains as he made his way west.

      Bassett held down many jobs out there; for a time he was a bronco-buster in a rodeo. Later he drifted to Texas and joined the U.S. Cavalry.

      With his wanderlust somewhat sated, Bassett eventually returned to Connecticut and took a job with the Southern New England Telephone Co. But still he stayed outdoors, putting up telephone poles in rural areas.

      After more than 30 years with SNET, he retired early to devote more time to his first love: hiking. Bassett was one of the first people to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, 2,000 miles from Springer Mountain, Ga. to Mt. Katahdin, Me. It took him 166 days. He was 62 then.

      "Howie was a quiet man who preferred to walk in the woods," said his longtime friend, Ray Wilson of Wolcott. "He was kind of a loner.

      "But the Appalachian Trail changed him. After he walked the trail, he became more outgoing."

      During that trek, he went nearly two weeks without seeing another human being. Yet along the way he had some wonderful encounters - he stopped to help a widow and her two sons cut their alfalfa before the rain came - and when he returned home, he found he was a local celebrity.

      He never had any kids and he outlived two wives. He spent his last years alone in a house he refurbished that overlooked Hitchcock Lake in Wolcott.

      "He was very secretive about everything he did," Wilson said. "He wouldn't say where he was going unless he wanted somebody to take care of his cat."

      Bassett's life seemed akin to that of Henry David Thoreau on Walden Pond. "He did everything by himself," Wilson said. "He was a damn good carpenter but he didn't like power tools. He was deathly afraid of a chain saw.

      "He had an old television set but I wouldn't give it to my worst enemy," Wilson laughed. "That's the way he lived. He finally got a new refrigerator when the handle broke off. He liked to make things last."

      Bassett was afraid of airplanes and couldn't swim, Wilson said. "But he would go canoeing as long as we gave him a life preserver."

      In his later years, Bassett bought a camper and traveled all over the country, hiking in many national parks and Alaska.

      During the last weeks of his life, he repainted his house and did over the markers on his part of the trail, all the way from Sleeping Giant Park in Hamden to Prospect. "I guess he knew his time was coming," Wilson said.

      Bassett died at the wheel of his camper one night last November while driving to the annual Blue Trail banquet.

      "Apparently he had a stroke," Wilson said. "He died the way he wanted to. He was afraid of going to a convalescent home."

      Bassett had asked that his ashes be spread along his favorite part of the 20-mile trail section he tended. And he wanted that done in the springtime.

      Bassett, who was 81 when he died, is survived by a half-sister, Emmeretta Holway of West Haven. Her husband, Thomas Holway, said, "Howard was the type of person who didn't have many friends." But then he said, "He is greatly missed by a great many people."
    Person ID I16874  1A William Bassett of Plymouth
    Last Modified 22 Dec 2015 

    Father Louis E. Bassett,   b. 1875, Connecticut Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Mother Flora 
    Family ID F11730  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart