Samuel Chipman Bassett

M, #10064, b. 23 September 1779, d. 1816
Pedigree
Father*Rufus Bassett b. 6 Apr 1757, d. 1 Oct 1796
Mother*Jedidah Handy b. 11 May 1757
ChartsPedigree - father Charles Harold Bassett
Bassett (paternal side) - William Bassett (1)(Immigrant 1621)
Reference4G Grf
DNAbassett* Samuel Chipman Bassett is a descendant of William Bassett of the 1621 Fortune per dna kit #9466 & 5901 - see http://bassettbranches.org/ and click on DNA Project then the Excel spreadsheet to find see the kit number. 
Birth*23 September 1779 He was born on 23 September 1779 at Woodstock, Windsor Co., Vermont. 
Residence*  Samuel Chipman Bassett resided Moved to Benson, Rutland, VT right after born. 
Religion1796 He: 1796 Benson, Rutland Co., Vermont, member of 1st Baptist Church. 
Marriage*17 January 1802 He married Temperence Loveland, daughter of Robert Loveland and Ruth Or Elizabeth Gaines, on 17 January 1802 at Rutland Co., Vermont. 
Marriage*9 April 1809 Samuel Chipman Bassett married Anna Harmon, daughter of Oliver Harmon and Mary Plum, on 9 April 1809 at Rutland Co., Vermont. 
MovedTo*1814 Samuel Chipman Bassett moved to Licking Co., Ohio, in 1814 from VT. 
Death*1816 He died in 1816 at Drowned, Tuscarawas River, Coshocton Co., Ohio, on move from Licking Co to Lake/Geauga Co. 
Burial* He was buried at Coshocton Cemetery, Coshocton, Coshoscton Co., Ohio, (no tombstone) Wilma Hunt 819 Concord Place Coshocton OH 43812 614-622-4583 is a local gen expert if we ever want to do more there, though I think I've exhausted the sources there. 
Story* The story behind my making the connection of Samuel C Bassett to his father Samuel Chipman Bassett:
     I had researched my husband's Bassett line back to Samuel C Bassett and Esther Bodwell. They were married in 1827 in Athens County Ohio. According to the census, Samuel C was born in 1806 in Vermont. Also in Athens County in the same township was a Robert L Bassett born in 1808 in Vermont. I have no definitive proof of their being brothers but since they are the only Bassetts in the entire county, and born 2 years apart in the same far away state, it is reasonable to assume that they are indeed brothers.
     David's family tradition has been that they are descended from William Bassett who came on the Fortune in 1621, but they only had names back to 2nd great grandfather Oliver C Bassett. When I found Samuel C Bassett to be Oliver's father, I looked to see if the printed genealogies on William's descendants included him. They didn't, but there were a couple of lines who had the name Samuel. One of these branches ended up in Vermont. Rufus Bassett had a son Samuel Chipman Bassett. Hmm, thought I, Samuel C could be Samuel Chipman. Of course that's not enough even for circumstantial evidence, but worth a further look. The Chipman part, by the way, is not his mother's maiden name but a Chipman did marry one of his ancestors siblings.
     I decided to see what I could find out about Samuel Chipman Bassett, and that research eventually led me to a Loveland genealogy. Samuel Chipman had married Temperance Loveland. According to the Loveland Genealogy, which unfortunately was not documented, Samuel and Temperance had the following children - Lydia, Olive, Chipman, and Robert. No dates or other information on this family. Robert is not a common name in the early Bassett families so now we're getting somewhere.
     Look again at Samuel C's children. His first two children are Lydia and Olive just like his potential aunts. In addition to his own middle initial of C, his son Oliver has the middle initial of C. In addition to all of these 'coincidences', I pretty well eliminated the other Vermont Bassetts as being the parents of Samuel C or Robert - as individuals or as brothers. So for all these reasons I am sure that Samuel Chipman Bassett is the father of Samuel C Bassett, called Chipman in the Loveland Genealogy.
     All of this background is to let you know why I am so interested in finding out all I can on Samuel Chipman Bassett. Of course my first priority was to try to find where he died to see if there was a will or probate mentioning his children. His father had moved to the town of Jay in Essex County New York and some of his siblings were there but not Samuel Chipman. Temperance had died in 1808 - my guess is that she died in childbirth with Robert. Anyway, Samuel Chipman needed a mother for his young children and married the following year Anna Harmon. I had found three different references saying that Samuel Chipman died by drowning. The dates were 1814, 1815, & 1816, but the places were a little more scattered. One said he drowned 'in the Ohio River', one said 'the Miami, a tributary to the Ohio River', and the third said he drowned 'in the Tuscarawas River'. Well now, the Ohio River is pretty general but part of the Athens county boundary is the Ohio River so that seemed the most logical. The Miami, a tributary to the Ohio, seemed a little less likely because it's clear over in Hamilton County, but still goes along with the Ohio River possibility of the other source. The least likely seemed to be the Tuscarawas River because it is towards the center of the state - not near Athens, and not near the Ohio River. At least all three sources agreed that he drowned, and that it was in the mid teens.
     Early in my research I had gotten information from someone researching Robert's family that Robert had been 'raised in Licking and Geauga' counties. This had not made sense to me because those two counties aren't close to each other, nor to Athens County where he was by age 22. But remembering that you never discard any clue until you have proved it right or wrong, I kept that clue in the back of my head.
     By the time I was planning my genealogy trip in 1991, I had exhausted the various microfilm and book possibilities of finding where Samuel Chipman had died. Because of that clue of Robert (regarding Licking and Geauga), I had looked for Bassetts in Licking and Geauga counties with no success in finding Samuel Chipman but I did find an Anna Bassett who married an Aaron Daniels in Lake County in 1817. Lake was part of Geauga County until 1840. Keeping in mind that one should always search collateral names when stuck, I decided to follow through on this lady. I was planning to visit my great aunt in Akron Ohio on this trip and decided to put in a visit to Lake and Geauga counties because they were relatively close. I looked at all the usual things that one looks at when visiting a courthouse, then went to the local library as I had found out that they had a genealogy room.
     They had a nice size genealogy room and in it was a file cabinet with manilla folders of correspondence and other tidbits filed by family name. This sort of collection is generally called a vertical file. No Bassett folder, but what's this? A Harmon file with just one thing in it. A copy of the June 1989 issue of the Lake County Historical Quarterly. The feature article was an extract of the Autobiography of Reuben Plum Harmon of Kirtland, Lake County, Ohio. Well, that name wasn't familiar but I decided to skim it anyway. In the first paragraph, Reuben says he was born in Licking County. Hey! Robert was supposedly raised in Licking and Geauga and here's a Harmon in the same two counties. Let me read further. Aha, his father's family moved to Licking County from Rutland County Vermont. Anna Harmon and Samuel Chipman Bassett were married in Rutland County Vermont, so I know this is the same family. He goes on to say, "that section of country being so far in the interior of the state without any outlet for farm products [they] concluded to move into the northern part of the state." Well, that explains how Robert would be in both Licking and Geauga counties if they were all together.
     Eureka, the next couple sentences are what I have been looking for! "Accordingly they started on their journey in a few days. In crossing the Tuscarawas River, Bassett, the husband of Aunt Anna, my grandfather's oldest daughter, was drowned, his body was found about 4 miles below in the flood wood, was disfigured by the buzzards and somewhat decayed. The body was interred in the cemetery of the village of Coshocton." The personal memory of the drowning found in Samuel's second wife's nephew's autobiography. This account also confirms the source that I had first considered the least likely of the three places for Samuel Chipman to have died. That particular account didn't say anything about why he was there, just that after the family had crossed the river in a rented boat, Samuel had returned the boat and was in the process of swimming back across when he drowned.
     Then and there I decided to take a side trip to Licking and Coshocton. I did look at the cemetery which is well kept and was 'read' in the 1960's but there is no tombstone for Samuel. Most likely there never was one, since they were just passing through. I found no probate or guardianship records in either county which was disappointing. In Licking County I found that Oliver Harmon bought from Eliphas Thrall Lot #26 Sec 4 Twn 2 Range 14 on 18 Aug 1815 (deed book E page 452). On page 272 of the same book it says that Oliver Harmon (of Granville) bought the same description of land from Samuel Thrall on 28 Nov 1814. My guess is that the two Thralls owned the land jointly and that negotiations took longer with Samuel Thrall. But for whatever reason, it does show that the Harmon family arrived in 1814, not 1816 that Reuben states in his autobiography. My guess is that 1816 is the year they left and Samuel drowned. That would have made for a two year try at making a living before moving north. Interestingly enough, Oliver Jr and wife Lucy did not sell the land until 1825 from Geauga (deed book 11 pg 529 part of lot 23 in tract 1 townshp 9).
     I also found the marriage of Lydia Bassett to Simon Prouty in 1821. This threw me for a loop. How come she's still in, or back in, Licking after the move in the mid teens? Since Robert was 'raised in Licking and Geauga' it's logical that they all were. At the Licking County Ohio Genealogical Society Library I found something interesting when looking up Bassett. In the 1875 History of Licking County was a Sylvester Hayes, born in Essex County New York who married Fanny Bassett who was born in Brattleboro Vermont in 1790. This is Samuel Chipman Bassett's sister. Did they move to Licking County at the same time as the Harmons and Samuel? Now to add the name Hayes to the list. I found one more item as a result. In An Historical Story of The Elihu Phelps Hayes Ashery was an entry that Sylvester and Fanny came to Licking County from Jay, Essex County, New York in 1818.
     The exact sequence of all this will probably never be proved, but here is my conclusion. I think that 1816 is the date of the move north when Samuel drowned. That all the kids went north with stepmother Anna. With 6 mouths to feed, (4 stepchildren and two that she had with Samuel), Anna needs a husband so marries Aaron Daniels in Jan 1817. When Sylvester and Fanny moved to Licking they probably picked up her nieces and nephews and took them with them to Licking. This conclusion would tie in Robert's being raised in Licking and Geauga with Lydia's subsequent marriage back down in Licking.
     Even though I can't prove some of the conclusions, I never would have had any conclusions to reach if I hadn't checked the rather far afield collateral names of Harmon and Hayes.
 
Relationships4th great-grandfather of David Lee Bassett
2nd great-grandfather of Charles Henry "Charlie" Bassett

Family 1

Temperence Loveland b. 1777, d. bt 1808 - 1809
Marriage*17 January 1802 He married Temperence Loveland, daughter of Robert Loveland and Ruth Or Elizabeth Gaines, on 17 January 1802 at Rutland Co., Vermont. 
Children

Family 2

Anna Harmon b. 26 Mar 1783, d. 23 Mar 1849
Marriage*9 April 1809 Samuel Chipman Bassett married Anna Harmon, daughter of Oliver Harmon and Mary Plum, on 9 April 1809 at Rutland Co., Vermont. 
Children
Last Edited24 Jan 2011