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Copyright © by the submitter All rights reserved.
http://www.fgs-project.com/copyright.html
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SUBMITTED BY: Sue Bassett Folawn
e-mail: F122775@aol.com
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HUSBAND: Stephen Elisha BASSETT
date and place of birth: June 17, 1833, Houston Co. GA (1)
date and place of marriage: Feb. 18, 1855, Houston Co. (1)
other marriages: Elizabeth Thomas YOUNG, May 4, 1890, Mt. Jefferson, AL
(1)
date and place of death: 1897, Fort Valley, GA (1) (2)
father: Stephen BASSETT (1)
mother: Jane MORRIS (1)
...........................................................................

WIFE: Frances Emmoline HICKS
date and place of birth: Sept. 4, 1835, Crawford Co. GA (1)
date and place of marriage: Feb. 18, 1855, Houston Co. (1)
date and place of death: 1889, Fort Valley, GA (1)
mother's father: Elijah H. HICKS
mother's mother: Martha Matilda FUDGE
...........................................................................

CHILD 1: Stephen Augustus BASSETT
date and place of birth: 1856, Houston Co. GA (1)
married: Martha Candace MAYNARD
date and place of marriage: Feb. 8, 1879 (1)
date and place of death: Jan 7, 1929, Fort Valley (3)
...........................................................................

CHILD 2: Walter Leonard BASSETT
date and place of birth: 1858, Houston Co. (1)
married: Fannie BAXTER
date and place of marriage:
other marriages: Nannie BRYSON
date and place of death: July 13, 1922, Marshall Co. AL
...........................................................................

CHILD 3: Stephen Hicks BASSETT
date and place of birth: Mar. 8, 1850, Houston Co., GA (1)
married: Maud Artemisia BROWN
date and place of marriage: Dec. 16, 1884, Fort Valley
date and place of death: Feb. 23, 1925
...........................................................................

CHILD 4: Eisha Gordon BASSETT
date and place of birth: Nov. 13, 1862, Houston Co. (1)
married: Lena EZELL
date and place of marriage: Feb. 20, 1889, Fort Valley (1) (4)
date and place of death: June 27, 1889, Fort Valley (1) (4)
...........................................................................

CHILD 5: Ida Jane BASSETT
date and place of birth: 1866, Fort Valley (1)
date and place of death: Died in infancy,
...........................................................................

CHILD 6: Francis Asbury BASSETT
date and place of birth: 1868, Fort Valley (1)
date and place of death: Aug. 3, 1872, Fort Valley
...........................................................................

CHILD 7: Charles Dunwody BASSETT
date and place of birth: Oct. 13, 1870, Fort Valley (1)
married: Julia Frances MAYNARD
date and place of marriage: Dec. 30, 1890 (6)
other marriages: Agnes Krogg ANDERSON (6)
date and place of death: April 13, 1935, Monroe Co.
...........................................................................

CHILD 8: Sidney Green BASSETT
date and place of birth: 1872, Fort Valley (1)
married: Maggie SYKES
date and place of marriage: Dec. 26, 1883, Fort Valley
date and place of death: Jan 2, 1928, Fort Valley (5)
...........................................................................

CHILD 9: Martha Frances BASSETT
date and place of birth: July 13, 1876, Fort Valley (1)
Never married
date and place of death: Dec. 15, 1931, Fort Valley (1) (5)
..........................................................................
SOURCES for above data;
1-Family Bible
2-Obituary, Macon Telegraph, July 21, 1897, page 3
3-Obituary, Macon Telegraph, Jan 7, 1929
4-The Enterprise, Nuptuals and Obituary
5-Obituary, Fort Valley
6-Family records
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NOTES:
Stephen Elisha was born near Byron, GA. in 1833 and grew up as the second
from the youngest child of Stephen and Jane Bassett. According to the old
Pineola Bible pages, he joined the Church (presumed Shiloh Methodist
Church) as a young man of 18, and was a practicing Christian for the rest of his
life, devoting much of it to spreading God's word.

He married Frances Hicks (daughter of Elijah H. Hicks and Martha Fudge),
on Feb. 18, 1855 in her father's home in Crawford County. (3) He was 22. She
was 20. Early in their marriage, the couple settled near Fort Valley on
the Hardison Place, north of town on Taylor's Mill Road. In 1865, he purchased
the property and built the "Bassett homeplace" (also on Taylor's Mill
Road), known later as Pineola. Here they raised their family and spent many
years.  The Bassett homeplace remained in the family for over 100 years, occupied
by sons and grandsons and their families.

Stephen Elisha and Frances were married for nearly 35 years and were the
parents of 9 children, 7 of whom lived to adulthood. From an old
Diary/Ledger, we know that his pet name for her was "Puss". (1)

In his early years, the Rev. S. E. Bassett (as Stephen Elisha was listed in
later records) was a Methodist minister and Circuit Rider, traveling and
preaching, performing marriages and burying the departed, around the
surrounding counties. These ministers were known as "Saddlebag Saints" for
their efforts at carrying the Word on horseback. Stephen Elisha also
farmed and was a highly successful businessman. He ginned the cotton of his
neighbors, sold cotton gins, and acquired extensive property in both
Georgia and Alabama. He was also one of the incorporators of the Dow Land Bank of
Fort Valley as well as one of the founders of the Fort Valley College, the
first college for blacks in the state.

In a disagreement with the Methodist church in 1882, he was granted a
letter of removal (a form of resignation). He thereafter donated the land for and

built and established his own church, the Congregational Methodist Church
on Persons Street in Fort Valley. He preached there for 12 years.(2) He also

organized the Crawford County Wesleyan Congregational Church. At the time
of his death in 1897, he was superintendent of the Congregational churches of
Alabama for the Congregational Home Missionary Society.

In 1884, the Bassett homeplace was being managed by a Mr. Lonie Taylor (3),
which sounds as if Stephen Elisha and Frances may have moved to town when
he built the new church. This is also the year that Stephen Hicks Bassett
purchased the homeplace from his father and his own family moved there.

For all of the successes and good works during his lifetime, and there were
a remarkable number of them, the Rev. Bassett was also remembered as an
excessively harsh father and was greatly resented for that. We know this
from surviving family letters and stories. His will, however, was based on
trust in his family, and no one contested his wishes. He would seem to
have been a many faceted man; a farmer with very large holdings, a successful
businessman, and a man dedicated to his religious calling for all of his
adult life, paradoxical, but much admired.

Following the death of Frances in 1889, he married "Miss Tommie" Young, who
had been the governess for his daughter Fannie.

When he died, in 1897, his funeral service was preached by the Rev. S.E.
McDaniel on the words;

"I have fought a good fight,
I have kept the faith,
I have finished the course.
Servant of God well done,
Rest in thy loved employ." (4)

Stephen Elisha is buried in Oaklawn Cemetery, Ft. Valley, with a wife on
either side.
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Source notes for narative;
(1)Diary/ledger of S.E, Bassett 1868 and 1872 (found at Pinelola-2000)
(2) Information from "Methodist Church 1847-1905". Thomas Public Library,
Fort Valley
(3) "Near-by Orchards, farms and farmers. Business Directory of Fort
Valley
and Many Other Items" page 17, printed in 1884, speaks of the farm's
"splendid orchards".
(Found in the Fort Valley Library)
(4) Pineola Bible
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