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- Portrait and Biographical Record of Orange County, New York, Part 1
Colonel Edgar W. Bass
Colonel Edgar W. Bass has occupied the chair of Mathematics at West Point for the past seventeen years, and is recognized as a scientist and scholar. It has been his privilege to travel extensively while engaged in research. From March 1, 1874, until September 29, 1875, he was Assistant Astronomer, going with the United States expedition to New Zealand to observe the transit of Venus, which occurred in December, 1874. In July, 1878, he held a like position with a party which observed the solar sclipse in Colorado. As a mathematician he is an expert, and besides other publications is the author of a “Differential Calculus.”
Colonel Bass was born in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, October 30, 1843, but comes from old New England stock. His grandfather, Samuel Bass, was an old settler in the vicinity of Braintree, Orange County, Vermont, in which state he died. The Colonel’s father, Jacob W., a native of the same locality, was the first of the family to go West, as before his marriage he emigrated to Wisconsin. Early in the seventeenth century Deacon Samuel Bass settled in Braintree, Massachusetts, having crossed the Atlantic from England.
Jacob W. Bass lived for a few years in Chicago and Rockford, Illinois, engaged in merchandising, but after moving to Prairie du Chien he turned his attention to lumbering, and was proprietor of the largest business of the kind on the Chippewa River. Subsequently he moved to St. Paul, arriving there about 1848, and was the first Postmaster of the place, acting in that capacity for many years. He became well-to-do in commercial pursuits, and retired when he had acquired a comfortable fortune. His death occurred in 1889, at the ripe age of seventy-four years. Many of his investments were in real estate, and several additions were laid out under his supervision, one being known by his own name. He was a member of the Chicago Old Settlers’ Association, and politically was first a Whig and after a Republican. Both he and his faithful companion and helpmate were members of the Episcopal Church. He was born at Westchester, New York, and was a pioneer in the Buckeye State, and later lived in Wisconsin. He was an old-fashioned circuit-rider, and established numerous churches and missions in the Northwest. A man of remarkably strong constitution, he was hale and hearty when well along in years, and lived to be almost one hundred years old. Mrs. Martha D. Bass is still living, and is a resident of St. Paul. Of her two children, Frank B. is a prominent business man of St. Paul, and Edgar W. is the subject of this sketch.
The first five years of his life Colonel Bass passed in his native village, but in 1848 he removed with his parents to St. Paul, where for some time he was the only white boy. From 185(?) to 1858 he attended a private academy at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and then, returning home, obtained a clerkship in Thompson Bros.’ Bank, now the First National Bank, and held this place until 1862. August 13 of that year he enlisted in the Eighth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteers, being made Quartermaster’s Sergeant the following December. Up to June 1, 1864, he served in the campaign against the Sioux Indians in the Northwest, under General Sibley. June 30, 1864, he was discharged from the service and entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, from which he was graduated with honors June 16, 1868. Upon his graduation he was made Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, and from August 28, 1869, he served as instructor in the department of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at the Military Academy. February 14, 1871, he was commissioned First Lieutenant of the Corps of Engineers, and after his return hom from New Zealand, of which trip mention has previously been made, he was placed in command of an engineer company at Willet’s Point, serving as such from September 3, 1875, until February 28, 1876. Then he was promoted to be Adjutant of the Engineering Battalion, acting in that capacity until September 15, 1876, when he was made Assistant Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at the Military Academy. May 2, 1878, he accepted the chair of Mathematics, which he still occupies with credit to himself and to the full satisfaction of all concerned.
Personally Colonel Bass is very agreeable and entertaining as a companion and friend. With his large experience and fund of information he can successfully instruct others, and wins friends wherever he goes. Fraternally he belongs to the New York branch of the Loyal Legion, the Century Association of New York, and the Union League Club of the same city.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1843 - 1918 (75 years)