| Notes |
- 1850 Federal Census of Laurens, Otsego County, New York
Wilson F. Bassett 29 M New York Physician & Surgeon 1500
Mary A. 25 F New York
Benjamin C. 4 M New York
Emeline E. 2 F New York
Harriet H. 1/12 F New York
1860 Federal Census of Laurens, Otsego County, New York
Wilson T. Bassett 39 M New York Doctor 2000 1000
Mary A. 35 F New York House Keeper
Loriston B. 14 M New York
Emeline E. 12 F New York
Hortense H. 10 F New York
Mary 4 F New York
Wilson T. 1 M New York
1870 Federal Census of Otsego, Otsego County, New York (16 Jul 1870)
W.T. Bassett 49 M New York Physician 4000 3500
Mary A. 45 F New York Physician
Living with Deborah Carr (Inn Keeper)
1880 Federal Census of Cooperstown, Otsego County, New York
Wilson T. Bassett 59 M NY EN EN Head Physician
Mary A. 54 F NY NY NY Wife Physician
Hortense H. 29 F NY NY NY Daughter At home
Mary I. 23 F NY NY NY Daughter At home
Schenevus Free Press/Davenport Standard
Wilson T. Bassett of Cooperstown, 79 yrs. Doc. for 56 yrs. SFP 2-14-190
p3.c.1
Christ Church, Cooperstown, New York 1810-1960, A Parish Histo
by George E. DeMille, Canon of Albany, 1960
p. 35. "For years, Dr. Wilson T. Bassett was both a warden of Christ
Church, and a practising physician. And so, in a day when women physicians
were a rarity, was his wife. Their daughter, Mary Imogene Bassett, became a
physician likewise, and a very good one indeed. Realizing the difficulties
under which the country physician labored - his lack of facilities for testing
and research, she acquainted Mr. Edward Severin Clark with the need for a well
equipped hospital in Cooperstown. He had already, in 1909, built the Otsego
Hotel, not as a commercial speculation, but as means of developing Cooperstown
as a summer resort of a superior class. Through his generosity, the hospital
was opened for the use of the physicians in this area. In 1917, World War I
being then at its height, it was offered to the government as a convalescent
hospital for army aviation officers. Opened to the public in 1922, the sudden
death of Dr. Mary Imogene Bassett, who had served as chief of staff, gave it a
temporary setback. In 1927 it was reopened, and gradually developed into
something very different from the average small town hospital. It became a
research and teaching center, affiliated with the College of Physicians and
Surgeons of Columbia University, with clinics renowned over a wide area. It is
today a model institution attracting patients from all over the United States.
It has brought into Cooperstown a steady flow of highly skilled professional
men, some transients, some remaining who have leavened the life of community
and parish".
Biographical Review, Otsego County, New York (189
Wilson T. Bassett, M.D., a prominent physician of Cooperstown, N.Y.,
was born at New Lisbon, Otsego Co., N.Y., February 2, 1821. His father,
Benjamin Bassett, was born in Yorkshire, England, and resided there unt
1815, when with his wife and two infant sons, he sailed for the United States.
The voyage was made in a sailing vessel, steamships not having then begun to
cross the sea. The voyage was a very stormy one and occupied three months and
two days. When within a few days' sail of New York a terrible storm came upon
them and nearly wrecked their vessel, and for six weeks afterward they were
tossed about upon the ruthless ocean, during which time they were put upon a
short allowance of food, and lost what property they had on board, before it
was possible for them to land. They at length landed in New York. They were of
an honest, industrious and intelligent class of English people, and were
unaccustomed to such rough ways as they found in this new country and to the
hardships that awaited them here; they were disappointed, too, in not
receiving the assistance which they thought they had a right to expect from
friends already here, and for these reasons their struggle for existence was a
very hard one. Mr. Bassett was compelled to rely entirely upon his own
resources. He was a veterinary surgeon, and would doubtless have succeeded
well, but a few years after landing in this country, he became blind fr
sickness brought on by exposure, and died in 1824, leaving the burden of the
care and support of the family solely in the hands of his widow. She was a
woman of superior intelligence and executive ability, and managed her affairs
so successfully that she became in time well situated in life, and lived to
the advanced age of seventy-eight years, dying in Otsego County. Her maiden
name was Elizabeth Hewitt. She reared one son, Samuel F. Jones, by a former
marriage. By her second husband, Benjamin Bassett, she had three sons, viz.:
John, a farmer residing at Garrattsville, Otsego County; William, a retired
physician, who practiced many years at Binghamton, N.Y.; and Wilson T., the
subject of this sketch, the only one born in the United State
Wilson T. Bassett in inherited a sound constitution, and was naturally
of a studious disposition. His early habits were carefully watched and formed
by his mother, who had a very comprehensive and accurate understanding of the
meaning of the word discipline. His early educational advantages were somewhat
limited, consisting of only four months school in the year from the time he
was eight until he was sixteen years old, but he made the most of the
opportunities he did have, as is evident from the fact that when he w
little past sixteen years old he taught a term of school, continuing to teach
four successive winters. The intervening summers he spent in study, part of
the time under the private instruction of Rev. Joh Hughes, a fine scholar, and
a portion of the time in the Clinton Classical Institute, then one of the best
academies in the State. In his youthful days books and newspapers were
comparatively scarce, and having a strong desire to acquire knowledge, he read
everything that came to his hand. One of these books was "Combe's Constitution
of Man," which he studied with great care, and which may have been the means
of turning his attention to the study of medicine. He also acquired a good
English education and a fair knowledge of mathematics and Latin, at the same
time mixing in a good deal of anatomy and physiology on his own account. When
nineteen years old he began the study of medicine regularly in the office of
Dr. G.W.P. Wheeler, of Garrattsville, and at the age of twenty-one took his
course of lectures at the Albany Medical College, paying his expenses with
money he had saved from his earnings. He continued in attendance at this
college for the two succeeding winters, and graduated from the institution in
1844. Almost immediately after graduating he began practice in Mount Vision,
Otsego County, but as for the first three or four years he had but litt
practice, he had ample time for further study, which he faithfully improved.
When thirty years of age Dr. Bassett had acquired a large practice,
but as there was no practitioner in that locality who could be relied upon in
severe and complicated cases, he realized the necessity of a more thorough
knowledge of his profession. Accordingly, in the fall of 1858 he left h
practice and his family and spent five months in New York City, attendi
lectures, hospitals, and the clinics of such physicians and surgeons as
Carnochan, Wood, Peaslee and Barker, and worked from four to six hours daily
in the dissecting room during the entire five months. Upon returning to the
field of his labors he entered upon a much larger practice than before, and
performed some surgery and held much consultation. He thus continued hard at
work until the fall of 1863, when he returned to New York City, and during the
fall of that year and the succeeding winter he attended the hospitals a
lectures, and took a special course in surgery with Dr. Frank H. Hamilton,
working in the dissecting room as before. Returning home in the spring, he
continued his practice through the summer, and in the fall of 1864 went into
the office of Dr. March, assisting him in this operations, and being under his
private instruction altogether for six months, attending lectures on anatomy
and also working in the dissecting room. He subsequently had a very lar
increase in his surgical and consultation work. I the fall of 1868 and the
following winter he attended lectures at Harvard Medical College, and took a
special course on the eye with Professor Williams, and also attended the
surgical lectures of Professors Bigelow and Cheever.
From this brief outline of Dr. Bassett's history it will appear that
his opportunities for becoming a thoroughly learned and skillful physician and
surgeon were of the best, and that his determination to be well qualified was
of the strongest. These facts being generally recognized, it is not remarkable
that his practice should be very large and that he should be brought in
contact with more critical cases than usually fall the lot of the physician
outside of the largest cities. He has been called in consultation at times to
distances of fifty miles from home, and frequently to lesser distances. He has
performed numerous difficult surgical operations, as in hernia, in amputation
at the shoulder and hip joint, and in lithotomy.
During the Civil War Dr. Bassett manifested his patriotism by treating
all returning soldiers, and the families of these soldiers while they were
absent in the field, free of charge, and these services were very widely and
very gratefully accepted. In the spring of 1869 he removed to Cooperstown,
that place being more central and affording him a wider field for practice.
Since living there his practice has been very large, and has embraced many
difficult cases of surgery. He has had the medical charge of the Orphan Asylum
at Cooperstown, for which he has made no charge. Dr. Bassett is a member of
the Otsego County Medical Society, and is also a prominent member of the State
Medical Society. He has been on the witness stand a great many times as expert
in murder trials when insanity has been set up as a defense. In such cases he
has invariably been the despair of the lawyers in cross examinations. He is
one of the most affable of men, and this fact has frequently led lawyers into
the mistake of thinking they could browbeat or confuse him, but the result has
always been that the lawyers themselves have been confused. The Doctor is the
most accomplished witness that has ever been placed on the stand in Otsego
County. He has no political aspirations, but he has served as County Coroner
and has represented the town on the County Board of Supervisors, with much
credit to himself and to the entire satisfaction of all concerne
April 12, 1845, Dr. Bassett married Mary Augusta Ostrander, a daughter
of William and Harriet Ostrander, of whom a sketch appears elsewhere in this
volume. Dr. Bassett has four children living, viz: Liston B., engaged in
business in Norwich, N.Y.; Emma, wife of Melville Keyes, an attorney at
Oneonta; Hortense, who is an invalid, and M. Imogene, a graduate of the
Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, which she attended
four years. She then took a post graduate course at the Polyclinic College of
Philadelphia, and was for a time instructor in nervous diseases in that
institution. She was also assistant to Dr. Charles K. Mills. Since the death
of her mother she has returned to her home and now has quite an extensi
practice, quickly taking up the practice her mother had acquire
It gives great pleasure to the publishers of this work to be able to
present in this volume a portrait of Dr. Bassett, who for so many years had
been one of the most prominent and successful of the physicians of Otse
County.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1821 - Abt 1900 (79 years)