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- Romantic Stor of Baron Basse, Founder of Zelienople
By Dettmar Passavant
The razing of the old log house, on Main street, Zelienople, of Philippe Louis Passavant, the son-in-law of Dettmar Basse, or as he was variously named, Baron Basse, Dr. Basse Muller, or even Dr. Mueller, calls for more than passing notice. it was the first house within the now known town bounds, but the first house in the purlieu of Zelienople was the two-story ?Bassenheim? or ?Basse?s Home,? a castellated structure built of brick, stone and fram eon an eminence between the trolley line cut and the New Caslte Road at the end of the bridge crossing the creek at Allen Stop.
As the building of these two houses bears intimately on the life of Barno Basse, as we shall call him, ity may interest the readers to learn some romantic phases and episodes in the life of this restless and eccentric individual.
Born in Iserlon, Germany, in 1760, Dettmar William Frederick Basse was the only son of wealthy parents. Not much is known of his boyhood years other than that he was carefully educated, and arriving at manhood chose the diplomatic service as his vocation. From all accounts he was very handsome, of engaging personality with polished and graceful manners, and spoke fluently three or four languages.
ROMANTIC STORY OF BARON BASSE, FOUNDER OF ZELIENOPLE Dettmar Passavant The razing of the old loghouse, on Main street, Zelienople, of Philippe Louis Passavant, the son-in-law of Detmar Basse, or as he was variously named, Baron Basse, Dr.Basse Mueller, or even Dr.Mueller, calls for more than passing notice. It was the first house within the now known town bounds, but the first house in the purlieu of Zelienople was the two-story "Bassenheim" or "Basse's Home," a castellated structure built of brick, stone and frame on an eminence between the trolley line cut and the New Castle Road at the end of the bridge crossing the creek at Allen Stop. As the building of these two houses bears intimately on the life of Baron Basse, as we shall call him, it may interest the readers to learn some romantic phases and episodes in the life of this restless and eccentric individual. Born in Iserlohn, Germany, in 1760, Dettmar William Frederic Basse was the only son of wealthy parents. Not much is known of his boyhood years other than that he was carefully educated, and arriving at manhood chose the diplomatic service as his vocation. From all accounts he was very handsome, of engaging personality with polished and graceful manners, and spoke fluently three or four languages. On a visit to Frankfurt on the Main he met, courted and married the wealthy and accomplished Wilhelmina Kellner. Two sons and two daughters were the issue of this union. When one of his daughters, Zelie (afterwards Mrs. Philippe Passavant) was six years of age the Baron received a diplomatic appointment to Paris where he remained ten years. During this period he negotiated the release of some German prisoners for which he received a vellum inscribed scroll of the "Freedom and Thanks of the City of Frankfurt" to be seen at the home of Miss Passavant on Main street. Through the long Napoleonic Wars the nobility of France had suffered fearfully, ground down by oppressive Romantic Story of Baron Basse, Founder of Zelienople 13 taxes, their estates confiscated, added to which were the horrors of the French Revolution, so that many were compelled to flee the country and part with their estates at a sacrifice. The Baron being of a visionary and speculative temperament bought a large estate of 600 acres near Paris called "Nielgine" that had once belonged to the Princes of Conde, and began to engage inmercantile pursuits, startinga ribbon factory which proved a failure. Obliged to sell his estate and attracted by the lure of the young Republic of America that promised life, liberty and pursuit of happiness untrammeled by religious persecutions, and intestinal wars of the old world, he finally decided to emigrate to America. The United States was the natural haven for these expatriated exiles, there having come to its shores in 1796 no less than three Princes of royal blood one of whom, Louis Phillipe was afterwards King of France. They visited Pittsburgh and made quite a stay there. Then too the tide of emigration from France had been wonderfully stimulated by the propaganda by the Ohio Scioto Company, a land speculation engineered by Rufus Putnam and others that flooded France with rosy pamphlets of cheap lands and an easy life in the backwoods of Ohio. Many French and German travelers had also returned from the States and published glowing accounts of America's free institutions, cheap lands, easy means oflivelihood, lauding the open, free, careless life,especially of the boundless Western Country. Arriving in Philadelphia in 1801 Basse was induced tobuy from the Philadelphia Land Company, one of the Robert Morris Companies that controlled millions of acres in what was known as the Donation Lands, a certain block north and west of the Ohio and Allegheny rivers, opened up by the Act of 1792 to settlement by soldiers of the Revolutionary War to whom warrants had been given in lieu of money of which the impoverished government had none. As many of these old soldiers, broken in health and spirits, did not care to settle on these lands only ten years prior vacated by the Indians, they sold these warrants for a few cents on the dollar to these famous ?or shall we say infamous ?land speculators. 14 Romantic Story of Baron Basse, Founder of Zelienople Coming over the long mountainous journey from Philadelphia with pack horse and team Basse arrived in Pittsburgh in1801. To this polished and cultured man the rawness and crudeness of this frontier town must have been amazing. It was a town of 200 houses, 150 of which were of logs. As the central outfitting point for the rapidly settling Western country its inhabitants were for the most part wildIrish, traders, boatmen, here and there a drunken Indian. The streets were unpaved and unlighted. "Hogs, dogs, drays and noisy children filled its streets" says Samuel Jones, first Recorder of Allegheny County. Arthur Lee, an English traveler says itwas the worst place he ever got into and "damned without benefit of the clergy." The stirring sights and scenes of this frontier town, Pittsburgh, its shifting, cosmopolitan population, packtrains with emigrants and freight from the East arriving daily, keel-boatmen and piroques with settlers and household goods from Brownsville coming and going to the limitless West, must have appealed to the romantic fancy of the Baron. He tarried in Pittsburgh some weeks and made the acquaintance of some of the leading citizens, the O'Haras, Nevilles, Dennys, Craigs, the Tarascon Bros., James Berthold & Co., compatriots of his in the shipping business and it requires no stretch of the imagination to think of him as having met some of the queer and eccentric characters of the town?Chevalier Dubac with his trained raccoon, the redoubtable MollyMurphy that kept the famous tavern on Ferry street ?and strangest of all the Frenchman Ruoe that dealt in smuggled silks and wines from the piratical stores of Lafitte of Louisiana. Butler county, where Basse's lands were, was just being formed in the years 1801-3. A few Scotch-Irish and German settlers had built a few log cabins in Butler, but apparently no settlements had been made between Butler and New Castle. It was all a primitive wilderness, miles and miles of virgin forest, criss-crossed by Indian trails leading south to Fort Pitt or Pittsburgh, west to Kuskuskia, the Moravian Delaware Indian town, and north to Fort Erie. The forests abounded in deer, bear, wild turkey, immense flocks of wild pigeons, an occasional elk, while mink, Romantic Story of Baron Basse, Founder of Zelienople 15 muskrat and, here and there, beaver were stillplentiful in the creeks. When the Baron reached his Butler county lands, the resources of these unpeopled solitudes must have appealed to his fanciful and visionary temperament. He writes enthusiastically to his daughter Zelie whom he had sent to Frankfurt to relatives that he is delighted with his purchase, purposed to have a castle built and a Baronial estate laid out that would put to shame those of many German Princelings, that he can embark in a canoe on his own land and float 2,000 miles to the Gulf of Mexico, that he had discovered iron ore on his lands and purposes to make iron and ifsuccessful retrieve their fortunes, and that she must come over and join him. He chose for the site of his "Castle" or "Bassenheim," the eminence just beyond the bridge before mentioned. Beautiful for situation itcommanded a magnificent sweep of the country in every direction. The building was very slow in being erected owing to the lack of labor and the need of allbuilding materials being transported from Pittsburgh on what could hardly be called roads?mere packtrails through the forest. About the year 1803 the Baron sold 5,000 acres of his land to the Rappites who at once began the erection of Harmony, having refused to sell the lower half which they had first desired. A few years passed. Finding his nearest neighbors the Harmonites not very friendly, nor sociable, too absorbed in clearing forests, planting vineyards, erecting manufactures, under the autocratic, and one might almost say the theocratic leadership of the two Rapps, Basse's restless spirit craved new excitements, and longingfor the society of his son and daughter Zelie, and wishing tobring them to this country, he in1806 resolved to go to Germany. On arriving in Frankfurt he found she had become betrothed to Phillipe Louis Passavant. Mr. Passavant was of French Huguenot extraction, his forbears having been compelled to leave France upon the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They emigrated to Switzerland and were engaged in the silk industry. In later years a branch had moved to Frankfurt and were engaged in mercantile 16 Romantic Story of Baron Basse, Founder of Zelienople pursuits. Here Mr. Passavant had met and became engaged to the charming and accomplished Zelie Basse. The Baron had no objection to the match, but sanctioned itonly on one condition, that they should leave for America with him,setting forth the charms and advantages of the New World in glowing terms. The young couple reluctantly amid the tears of well-wishing friends and relatives, agreed to go, sailing from Antwerp in September, 1807, the young bride never to see any of them again. Tarrying a while in Philadelphia, the party set out in large Conestoga wagons for their lon& journey over the mountains. Their baggage consisted of 70 cases of household goods, some fine Louis Seize furniture, rare china, valuable paintings, etc., and two imported Merino sheep, probably the first ever brought to the Western country. A ram was afterwards sold to the Harmonites for $1,000. Arrivingat Bassenheim in the depth of winter, in its still rude, unfinished state, the young bride, so tenderly nurtured, was almost heartbroken at the primitive conditions around her. The winter was a very severe one?bitter* cold?the snow sometimes filtering into their sleeping apartments, no help to be had, forced in a few months to bake her own bread, make her own clothes and endure all the discomforts and handicaps of the lowliest pioneer settlers. She bitterly complains in her letters to her friends in Germany, of the vicissitudes they have to endure and writes rather chidingly of her father having brought them to this wilderness under false pretenses. An Intime Journal, or Diary that she kept for many years recorded her secret thoughts and daily happenings. This she caused to be destroyed just before her death in1870. What a graphic picture itwould have given of backwoods pioneer life
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Bassett Family Association Database
1762 - 1836 (74 years)