Husband: Stephen Elisha BASSETT
Birthdate: June 17, 1833
Birthplace: Houston Co. GA (1)
Death date: 1897
Place of death: Fort Valley, GA (1) (2)
Father: Stephen BASSETT (1)
Mother: Jane MORRIS (1)
Other spouses: Elizabeth Thomas YOUNG, May 4, 1890, Mt. Jefferson, AL (1)

Marriage date: Feb. 18, 1855 (1)
Marriage place: Houston Co. (1)

Wife: Frances Emmoline HICKS
Birthdate: Sept. 4, 1835
Birthplace: Crawford Co. GA (1)
Death date: 1889
Place of death: Fort Valley, GA (1)
Father: Elijah H. HICKS
Mother: Martha Matilda FUDGE
Other spouses:

CHILDREN

Child No. 1: Stephen Augustus BASSETT
Birthdate: 1856, Houston Co. GA (1)
Spouses' names: Martha Candace MAYNARD
Marriage date: Feb. 8, 1879 (1)
Death date: Jan 7, 1929, Fort Valley (3)

Child No. 2: Walter Leonard BASSETT
Birthdate: 1858, Houston Co. (1)
Spouses' names: [1] Fannie BAXTER [2] Nannie BRYSON
Marriage date:
Death date: July 13, 1922, Marshall Co. AL

Child No. 3: Stephen Hicks BASSETT
Birthdate: Mar. 8, 1850, Houston Co., GA (1)
Spouses' names: Maud Artemisia BROWN
Marriage date: Dec. 16, 1884, Fort Valley
Death date: Feb. 23, 1925

Child No. 4: Eisha Gordon BASSETT
Birthdate: Nov. 13, 1862, Houston Co. (1)
Spouses' names: Lena EZELL
Marriage date: Feb. 20, 1889, Fort Valley (1) (4)
Death date: June 27, 1889, Fort Valley (1) (4)

Child No. 5: Ida Jane BASSETT
Birthdate: 1866, Fort Valley (1)
Spouses' names:
Marriage date:
Death date: Died in infancy,

Child No. 6: Francis Asbury BASSETT
Birthdate: 1868, Fort Valley (1)
Spouses' names:
Marriage date:
Death date: Aug. 3, 1872, Fort Valley

Child No. 7: Charles Dunwody BASSETT
Birthdate: Oct. 13, 1870, Fort Valley (1)
Spouses' names: [1] Julia Frances MAYNARD [2] Agnes Krogg ANDERSON (6)
Marriage date: [1] Dec. 30, 1890 (6)
Death date: April 13, 1935, Monroe Co.

Child No. 8: Sidney Green BASSETT
Birthdate: 1872, Fort Valley (1)
Spouses' names: Maggie SYKES
Marriage date: Dec. 26, 1883, Fort Valley
Death date: Jan 2, 1928, Fort Valley (5)

Child No. 9: Martha Frances BASSETT
Birthdate: July 13, 1876, Fort Valley (1)
Spouses' names: Never married
Marriage date:
Death date: Dec. 15, 1931, Fort Valley (1) (5)
 
 
Documentation:
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

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.

Source notes for narrative:
(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.