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- Fred Bassett, Sr.
History of Park County, Montana 1984
Homesteads could not be filed upon until the land was surveyed by the government, and Cinnabar Basin wasn't surveyed until 1904. So in March of 1905, Joe Stermitz, Sol Heist, and Fred Bassett rode to Livingston together to file on the places on which each was living. They left their horses at Miles Livery, and when they returned, the liveryman offered Fred $50 for his horse. Fred agreed, having been assured that he and his saddle could make it to the station in time to catch the train. When he reached the statioin, he could still see the departing train heading up the valley. He had promised his wife that he'd be home promptly, so he set out walking, and covered the 50 miles to Cinnabar Basin by the next morning. By that time his shoes were worn out and his feet were white with blisters.
In the winter, the men would work at various jobs, such as the Roberts Sawmill up Mill Creek above where Len and Sandy Sargent live today. (This operated about three years.) Fred worked cutting and hauling ice off Aldridge Lake. All the saloons and boarding houses had ice houses, and this was a major chore. Fred was known as a good man at breaking horses, and he certainly spent time in the winter with his stock. He was known for his wiry and spirited saddle horses, and enjoyed a race. Florence remembers the first time they went to Aldridge for Union Day (July 15). They took a buggy and no saddle horses, not knowing that horse racing was one of the major events. When they arrived at the doings, the Aldridge men asked Fred where his racing stock was. Fred left the family and buggy and hurried the nearly five miles back to the Basin to pick up some running horses.
One of the income-producing chores Florence remembers best is making and selling butter. They milked several cows and saved the cream. They churned on Thursdays and Fridays, and hired Grace Bailey to help them. Churning was done in a tub-type churn. Then the butter was worked and washed in a "butter worker". It then went through a printer and was wrapped in one-pound blocks. On Saturdays, the blocks were packed in beer boxes, about 100 to a box, covered with snow-white dish towels. In Aldridge, the butter sold for 25 cents a block. If you bought $1 worth, you got a free gallon of buttermilk.
With his teams, as with his saddle horses, Fred preferred smaller, spirited animals. Even after his brother-in-law, Harry Bray, was killed in a runaway on a hay rake near Absarokee, he enjoyed the thrill of handling a team that trembled with fire and power. For that reason, someone always had to hold the lines if the team wasn't tied. Florence was seven years older than her next sister, and for a number of years, one of her main jobs was to hold the lines when Fred was off the wagon. One runaway he didn't enjoy was when they were hauling water on a stone boat from the spring to the house. After one barrel was filled and Florence and her father were otherwise occupied, the team spooked and took off for the house. As they swept by the front porch, they cut sharply toward the barn, delivering the barrel, upright and with its full load, onto the porch. Their assigned mission accomplished, they proceeded to reduce the stone boat to kindling before settling down.
Fred and Leah Bassett had four children: Florence (born Sept. 22, 1898 in the Aldridge Hospital); Elsie (Simonson) (born May 9, 1905 at home); Winifred (Edleman) (born Nov. 16, 1907 at the ranch house on Bassett Creek); and Fred (born July 16, 1910 at home). His father called young Fred "Johnson" because he was born shortly after the famous heavyweight boxer, Jack Johnson, defeated Jim Jeffries in his comeback bid on July 4, 1910. However, the girls called Fred "Jiggs", after the comic strip character.
Leah passed away May 8, 1943, at the age of 68, and Fred Sr. died April 27, 1947 at the age of 84 at the ranch in Cinnabar.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1905 - 1969 (64 years)