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- Columbus Daily Enquirer, Georgia, Monday, December 18, 1922
John H. Bass Dies In Ft. Wayne, IND.
FT. WAYNE, Ind., Dec. 17. ? John H. Bass, 87 years old, millionaire manufacturer and philanthropist, died at his home late today after a lingering illness. Mr. Bass was the founder of the Bass Machine and Foundry Company here.
In addition to extensive industrial and commercial interest in Ft. Wayne he was identified with manufacturing plants in Chicago, St. Louis and in mining and steel industries in Alabama and Tennessee.
The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Indiana
Biographical Sketches
John H. Bass ? The name of John H. Bass is inseparably connected, in a most enviable way, with the financial and industrial life of Fort Wayne and the middle west during a period of more than sixty years. The activities of Mr. Bass in his home city date from the year 1852 when, at the age of seventeen, he inaugurated that vigorous, intelligent business career which has raised him to the pinnacle of success and placed his name among the captains of industry. Fort Wayne takes just pride in Mr. Bass as one of her foremost, substantial, progressive citizens. The monster plant of the Bass Foundry & Machine Company, spreading its departments over an area of more than five city squares in length will ever stand as a monument to his genius and ability ? for Mr. Bass, unlike many another man similarly situated, has been careful to keep his hands and his mind closely upon the developing business which has grown to such large proportions and has refrained from delegating the care of his larger affairs to others. The Bass Foundry & Machine Company had its inception in 1853, when it was organized as Jones, Bass & Company. John H. Bass came to Fort Wayne in the preceding year from Salem, Livingston county, Kentucky, where he was born, November 9, 1835. Mr. Bass is descended from early families of Virginia and the Carolinas prominently identified with the colonial history of the nation. The grandfather of John H. Bass on the side of the father was Jordan Bass, born in Virginia in 1764, from which state he moved to Christian county, Kentucky, in 1805, in the midst of the troublous conditions which preceded the war of 1812 in which Kentucky and Indiana took such as prominent part. He died in 1853 at the age of eighty-nine years. Sion Bass, father of John H. Bass, was born in Virginia, November 7, 1802. From the age of three, he was a resident of Kentucky and rose to prominence in the conduct of commercial affairs and the owner and cultivator of large areas of farm land. The wife of Sion Bass was Miss Jane Todd, bor in Charleston, South Carolina, June 19, 1802, the daughter of John Todd, also a pioneer settler of Kentucky. Sion Bass and wife remained in Kentucky until 1866, when they came to Fort Wayne and spent their closing days with their son, John H. Bass. The mother died August 6, 1874, and the father August 7, 1888. They were the parents of six children, four of whom attained to maturity. John H. Bass is the only surviving member of the family. In this connection it would seem entirely proper to refer briefly to the services and military record of Colonel Sion S. Bass, elder brother of John H. Bass, whose name is held in tender remembrance by the veterans of the Civil war and who have named one of the local posts of the Grand Army of the Republic in his honor. Sion S. Bass, who was born in Kentucky in January, 1827, came to Fort Wayne in 1848, as the first representative of the family to settle in Indiana. To his honor it may be said that he represented the type of pioneer manufacturer who laid the foundation for much of the active development in many lines of endeavor. As a member of the firm of Jones, Bass & Company, which was succeeded by the Fort Wayne Machine Works, he became indirectly one of the founders of the Bass Foundry & Machine Works, which was sold to the Pennsylvania railway for shop purposes and other industries which have resulted from the parent institution. Lincoln?s call for volunteers in 1861 appealed to him so strongly that he gave up, with temporary intent, the conduct of his affairs in order to give his services to his country. His first service was in giving assistance to the formation of the famous Thirtieth Indiana volunteers of which he was made colonel. This regiment took an active part in the maneuvers which led up to the battle of Shiloh. Early on the second day of that battle, the regiment, without time to rest from an arduous march to the field, was ordered to advance. Amid a deadly fire, the regiment pushed forward, led by Colonel Bass, who fell with a mortal wound. Many others fell in that fearful advance at Shiloh. The comrades of Colonel Bass, after a brief memorial service, sent the body back to Fort Wayne, where a city already in mourning for many others who sacrificed their lives in that immortal battle, bowed in deeper grief over the fallen leader of the gallant Thirtieth. John H. Bass attended the schools of his native county in Kentucky, and there gave evidence of a strong adaptability for the lines of study which later developed in the modern type of business man. For a time he enjoyed the instruction of a private tutor. He was seventeen years of age when he came to Fort Wayne, in 1852, to begin his actual commercial career. For a time he was employed in a grocery store, and then served as a bookkeeper for the contracting firm of Samuel and William S. Edsall. Then he joined his brother, Sion S. Bass, as an employe of Jones, Bass & Company, where he served as bookkeeper from 1854 until 1857, when the firm dissolved partnership. During these years, Mr. Bass had, by studying at night, perfected himself as an accountant. In 1857, when investments in Iowa lands proved an attractive venture, he went west and spent $3,700 in the choicest farm lands he could find. He remained two years, watching carefully the real estate conditions, and returned with $15,000 in cash and the deeds to real estate worth $50,000. The close application to the study of business methods fitted him, by the year 1859, to employ his capital, in company with that of Edward L. Force, in the establishment of Bass & Force. The aggregate output of the concern during the first twelve months reached $20,000. This plant stood on the site of the present Pennsylvania railway shops and became the nucleus of this great industrial department of that system. The example of Mr. Bass in venturing the investment of his money in manufacturing enterprises at that time was a great incentive to others to do likewise, with the result that For Wayne early became famed as a manufacturing center. Between the years 1860 and 1864 the business was owned and conducted by Mr. Bass and Judge Samuel Hanna. In 1863 Judge Hanna transferred hi interests to his son, Horace Hanna, whose death occurred six years later. At that time Mr. Bass purchased the stock held by the Hannas and has since been the sole owner of the business and, under his sole management, it has had a wonderful prosperity. Employment has been given to thousands down through the years, and many of Fort Wayne?s substantial citizens have been drawn and held there through their connection with the Bass Foundry & Machine Works. In 1898 the company was in incorporated with a capital of $1,500,000, which was later increased to $2,200,000. This corporation owns and operates a branch plant at Rock Run, Alabama, which mines and smelts a large part of the ore used in the products of the Fort Wayne plant. The fine grade of pig iron which is made into car wheels comes largely from the affiliated Alabama concern. From time to time larger and better buildings have been added to the Fort Wayne plant. An average of 2,500 men are employed here, with an annual payroll (1917) of $1,500,000. The tonnage of manufactured material shipped from the two plants aggregates 300,000 tons annually. The chief products of the Fort Wayne plant are car wheels, axles, iron and steel forgings, Corliss engines, boilers, complete power plants and gray iron castings. The product of the Rock Run plant is high grade furnace pig iron. The Fort Wayne plant covers an area of twenty acres. Twenty-five thousand acres of land are included in the Rock Run mining district owned by the company. Raw material from which the Fort Wayne plant produces its finished products is shipped to the city by the train load. The many departments of the business are operated ?like clockwork? and the products of the Bass establishments have made a reputation for themselves and Fort Wayne all over America. After Mr. Bass established the Fort Wayne plant on a prosperous basis, he gave a portion of his attention to other lines of industry which indicate his ability in many directions. In 1869 he founded the St. Louis Car Wheel Company, at St. Louis, Missouri, in which he held a controlling interest and served as its president until he disposed of his interest in the company. In 1873 Mr. Bass, despite the conditions which characterized the properties. SO wide are his investment interests that these suggestions must suffice to indicate their aggregate valuation which may be estimated at between five and six millions of dollars. Mr. Bass has ever given his support to the principles of the Democratic party. In 1888 he was chosen as a delegate from Indiana to the national convention of his party and was nominated as presidential elector in that year. Mr. Bass is prominent in Masonic affairs of Indiana; he has been honored with the Thirty-Third degree of the Scottish Rite. He is a member of the First Presbyterian church. In 1865 Mr. Bass was united in marriage with Miss Laura H. Lightfoot, daughter of the late Judge George C. and Melinda (Holton) Lightfoot. Mrs. Bass was born in Falmouth, Kentucky, and resided there with her parents at the time of the marriage. Two children have been born to them, Laura Grace, wife of Dr. Gaylord M. Leslie, of Fort Wayne, and John H., whose death occurred August 7, 1891. This brief review of the active life of Mr. Bass suggests nothing of the geniality of the man which has not only surrounded him with the warmest of friends but which has enabled him to establish such a relationship between the executive and the productive departments of his large enterprises as to preserve the highest degree of harmony and consequent efficiency. To him Fort Wayne owes much of the inspiration which has lifted her to a high place among the cities of the middle west.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1835 - 1922 (87 years)