BASSETT FARMS SITE HISTORY

Chapter 2: Bassett Home Place

The Bassett Home Place consists of 160 acres acquired by Henry Bassett in 1871 and an additional 16 acre wedge of land acquired from J.E. Vann in 1883. The Home Place is located almost entirely in Limestone County, Texas; the Limestone-Falls county line runs north-south through the far western portion of the Home Place.

The lands out of which the Home Place tract was created by 1869 had been granted in the 1850s to John G. Walker (northern portion) and Dr. Augustine Owen (southern portion). Surveyor and speculator B.J. Chambers acquired most of the Walker and Owen lands and sold a smaller 160-acre parcel to Sidney M. Jones who in turn sold it to Henry Bassett.

Sidney M. Jones Ownership (1869-1871)

Sidney M. Jones (1832-1901) was born in Georgia and settled near the Eutaw community, east of present-day Kosse, in Limestone County before the Civil War. He deserted the Confederate Army and later became one of the leading white Republicans in the county. Jones purchased 160 acres from B. J. Chambers on October 8, 1869 for $800 gold. The deed referenced the southeast corner of the property as being 250 varas east of Jones's house and 500 varas north of the Sulphur Spring; this is the approximate location of the present 1875 Bassett House.

The presence of a house on the site at the time of Jones's 1869 purchase suggests that he (or someone) had been living on the property prior to that time.1 That same year, Jones was taxed in Limestone County on 160 acres ($640), 100 horses ($2,620), 20 cattle ($80), and miscellaneous property ($140) for a total value of $3,480.2 The following year the tax list omitted his real property, but included 100 horses ($2,500), 12 cattle ($48), and miscellaneous property ($215) for a total value of $2,763.3

On May 19, 1870, Jones took his oath as Limestone County Sheriff and three days later on May 22nd he took his oath as Justice of the Peace for Limestone County, Precinct 4.4 In the 1870 census taken in June, the 37-year-old Jones was recorded as a "planter" living with his wife, Eura, and three children Annie, Albert, and Robert, and two others (Columbus Bragg, age 11, and Ben Hammonds, 22, a planter born in Mississippi). He owned real estate valued at $1,600 and sizable personal property valued at $6,850.5 The agriculture census of 1870 noted that he owned 20 horses, 4 mules, 50 cattle and 100 swine. His 65 improved acres produced 600 bushels of corn.6 In 1871, Jones became a central figure in the aftermath of the murder of D. C. Applewhite (first cousin and brother-in-law of Hattie Ford (Pope) Bassett), an event that triggered the declaration of martial law in Limestone County. He also provided testimony about the contested Congressional election of 1871.

1 Jones was taxed on property elsewhere in Limestone County in 1868 and likely did not move onto the property until 1869.

2 1869 Limestone County Tax list, page 15 (image 18)

3 1870 Limestone County Tax list, page 16 (image 17)

4 Texas, U.S., Bonds and Oaths of Office, 1846–1920

5 1870 US Population Schedule, 48th District of West Texas, Limestone Co., Texas.

6 1870 US Agriculture Schedule, 48th District of West Texas, Limestone Co., Texas.

The house that Jones lived in does not survive but was probably of a simple frontier type common to the region. Most early frontier houses in Falls, Limestone, and Robertson counties were of log construction. Surviving examples include the c. 1840 Cavitt log cabin in Wheelock (Robertson Co.); the c. 1840s Morgan Cabin, currently displayed at the Mayborn Museum at Baylor University in Waco; the c. 1860 Morrell Cabin, moved from the Blue Ridge west of Bassett Farms to the Old Settlers reunion grounds east of the Brazos River in 1936 (Falls Co.); and the Mordecai Yell Cabin, presently at Old Fort Parker Restoration (Limestone Co.).

In a conversation Ronald Stone in 2019, a rancher who purchased the Dean property adjacent to Bassett Farms in the 1960s and still lives on his "Sulphur Creek Ranch," he described the old Dean house on that property as being constructed of hewed oak log sills with studs notched and inserted into the sills held in place with wooden pegs and a dirt floor. A kitchen had been added to the back porch, and the porch was "like a hall."7 was not available locally until about 1876. During Jones's ownership (1869-1871), the Kosse-Marlin road followed the boundaries of his property (yellow); it was later (1950s) altered to

The metes and bounds of the 1869 and 1871 deeds locate the Jones house in the vicinity of the present Bassett House. The 65 improved acres that Jones used for growing corn in 1870 were probably on the opposite side of the branch in what would have been relative flat and open prairie, bounded on the south by the original route of the old Kosse-Marlin Road.

Owing to a lack of readily available stone, the typical fencing in the area prior to the arrival of barbed wire c. 1876 was known as a "Virginia" or "worm" fence and constructed of local oak, cedar, or elm. An early 20th century photograph of a rural Falls County farm shows the survival of one of these early worm fences used to protect farmsteads and fields of crops from cattle and horses on the open range in the mid-19th century. A natural alternative in the late 1860s was to plant a bois d'arc hedge. This tree created a thick, thorny hedge; bois d'arc trees can be found scattered throughout Bassett Farms.8 One early Limestone County settler recalled that "one rancher had about 20 acres of corn unfenced. Asked how he kept the cattle out of the corn he replied that he had 5 good dogs who made a cattle proof fence."9

Other structures that Jones would likely have constructed in addition to his house, if not already on the site, were a barn, a smokehouse, a kitchen, and a cistern to collect rainwater. No physical evidence of these structures have yet been found.

The road in front of the Jones ranch would have been a narrow track that provided access for local landowners, becoming the main Kosse-Marlin Road after 1870. Prior to 1870 and the settlement of Kosse, the major east-west route was the stage road linking Marlin to Eutaw via Alto Springs, approximately 1.5 miles south. The principal pre-1870 north-south route, linking Alto Springs to the Limestone County seat of Springfield, was southeast of the Jones ranch.

Henry Bassett Ownership (1871-1888)

Henry Caleb Bassett (1817-1888) was born in Connecticut, where he married and had a son. In the 1840s, he settled in Iowa where he married again and had three sons. He spent time in Michigan, later living on his own in Mexico, New York, and Quebec. He had not divorced either wife, and it is unlikely that either one knew of his other family. He worked as a contractor, and in Lyons, Iowa he drafted and notarized land titles as a Justice of the Peace. He also served on a committee overseeing the construction of a new school. Family stories indicate that he supervised bridge construction in Cuba, although no documentary evidence of this has been located.

By 1870, Henry was one of many northern investors who settled in Texas. He first made his way to Grimes County (where there is no record that he ever owned any real estate) and later went to Kosse early in 1871 to invest in real estate. He had no experience as a farmer or rancher. On February 16, 1871 he paid $2,000 in gold for the 160-acre tract from Sidney M. Jones that would become known as the Bassett Home Place.

Later that month, in February 1871, he would purchase a separate, discontiguous tract of 185 acres that would later become the core of what was known as the Bassett's "Town Place," owing to its location adjacent to the town of Kosse. The Town Place would grow to 395 acres. Henry probably lived in the Jones house for the next several years until construction of the Bassett House was completed c. 1875, after which the Jones house is thought to have survived as an outbuilding for a number of years behind the Bassett House.

Throughout his years on the Home Placea, Henry Bassett referred to it as his "Sulphur Spring Plantation" and "Sulphur Spring." A visitor to the farm in 1877 recalled that he talked about the commercial prospects for his spring. A brick well constructed along the branch of Sulphur Creek west of the Bassett House was probably built on top of the spring; it retains water even in times of drought, and the creek bed adjacent to the well is consistently wet even during long periods of dry weather.

In 1872, Henry Bassett was taxed on his two tracts of land and one horse; he owned no other livestock. By 1873, he was taxed on his 160-acre Home Place ($1,600), his 185 acres Town Place ($600), 2 horses ($60), and he had acquired 2 cattle ($10) and 2 mules ($120). Unfortunately, tax lists between 1874 and 1882 have been lost. The tax lists do not record crop production, and no other records survive to indicate what crops, if any, he grew, until the 1880 agricultural census. In 1880, 100 acres were being tilled and 215 acres were unimproved and likely used for livestock grazing, timber, and game. He spent $100 on fencing materials in 1879, and had hired five Black men at a total cost of $25 to provide farm labor. He owned five horses, two mules, seven dairy cows, a herd of 14 cattle, 31 sheep, and poultry numbering 116. He farmed 50 acres in corn, producing 1,200 bushels, and 50 acres in cotton, producing 11 bales. His dairy cows supported production of 150 pounds of butter.

The 1880 agricultural census reveals that Bassett had a peach orchard with 100 fruit-bearing trees. Peaches were introduced to the area by W. J. Tacker, a Tennessee native born in 1818. He settled in neighboring Freestone County, about 15 miles south of Fairfield, and grew peaches from seeds he collected from what was called a "White English" tree in Cherokee County, Texas. This variety was later sold as seedlings by nurseries such as Enterprise Nurseries in Tyler through the efforts of Frances Bowlen Bond, Tacker's son-in-law, who renamed the variety the "Tacker" seedling. It was thought that "everyone" in the vicinity grew this variety of peach.10

In the early 1870s, Bassett wrote letters home to his first wife, Harriet (Shelton) Basset (1817-1895), and son Francis Henry Bassett (1845-1922) expressing his enthusiasm for Kosse. His first wife recalled that "during the year 1873 [Henry] wrote me from Kosse Limestone County Texas from that time forward he wrote me that he liked Kosse very much and could never content himself to live in Bridgeport…"11 His son similarly recalled that his father's letters conveyed his satisfaction with Kosse and on "April 12th, 1874 he wrote me a letter which I still have wherein he wants me to come down and take charge of his business, gave me a description of his farm and to be sure and bring mother with me."12 It was at about this time that Henry cut off all communication with his Connecticut family. On July 23, 1874, instead of arranging for his family to move to Kosse, he married his third wife, Hattie Ford (Pope) Bassett. The local newspaper reported:

10 "Noted Peach of Bi-Stone Came In From Tennessee," Mexia Daily News, 29 June 1955, page 1. See also Powell, Harold G., "The Chinese Cling Group of Peaches," Delaware College Agricultural Experiment Station, page 29: "Tacker … Mr. F. B. Bond, Mexia, Texas, writes of it [1901] … we consider it the most valuable of clings for this locality for its time of ripening, Sept. 1st" and "it is said to be 'white to the seed, size extra large, a regular bearer.'"

11 Affidavit of Harriet Bassett, November 30, 1889, Bassett Archive.

12 Affidavit of Francis H. Bassett, November 30, 1889, Bassett Archive.

Mr. Henry Bassett, a young gentleman from Canada, took Miss Hattie Pope, a blooming blushing bride home under his own vine and fig tree growing near Sulphur Springs.13

Henry Bassett’s third wife, Hattie Ford Pope, was born in Marion County, Mississippi in 1851, the youngest child of Jacob Pope (c. 1815-1860) and his wife Nancy Lee (c. 1815-1865). Jacob and Nancy were married in Marion County on December 24, 1836 by William Fortenberry, where they remained until the 1850s when the family moved to Bossier Parish, Louisiana. Jacob died in 1860; his eldest son, Rufus Pope, died in service as a Confederate scout in Virginia 1862.14 Three years later, Hattie Ford's mother died in 1865, leaving her an orphan at the age 14. The circumstances of her living arrangements are not entirely clear, but Hattie Ford remained in Bossier Parish until 1868 where she attended Fillmore Academy. Her brother-in-law and first cousin, D. C. Applewhite, wrote to her from Texas on April 17, 1866: “I want you to continue at school at Fillmore until next year, and then I will see if I can’t send you where you can graduate.” She remained at Fillmore with her younger brother, Albert Willis "Bud" Pope, who was two years older.

Hattie Ford’s sister Eliza (Pope) Applewhite later encouraged her to move to Texas with her brother. She wrote to her on February 21, 1868: “I do not wish to part you and [Bud].” She was living in Bryan, Brazos County, Texas, and she suggested that both Hattie and Bud move to Texas. On March 7, 1868, she wrote to 16-year-old

Hattie Ford: “There is a bright future here for you… I have some nice friends here that I think you would like very much… I think that Bud can make a great deal more here than in Bossier. The land is very good and rents cheap if he wishes to farm he could go in with some good man and make a plenty for himself.”15 The first evidence of Hattie’s move to Texas is a letter written to her at a Bryan, Texas address on February 14, 1869 from a Bossier Parish friend, Mollie Busby. A series of social invitations in Calvert and Bremond form 1868 and 1869 suggest that Hattie moved with her sister to Calvert and later Bremond in Robertson County, Texas. Her brother Bud would also move to Texas, eventually settling on a farm near Kosse.

Hattie Ford was very close to her sister Eliza’s husband, their first cousin, Dewitt Clinton "D.C" or "De" Applewhite. De had an auction business, and had been traveling when on September 30, 1871 he was murdered in Groesbeck, Limestone County by a black Special Policeman. Republican Governor Edmund J. Davis appointed Special Policemen to oversee the upcoming October 1871 election, and Limestone County was considered to be "as shamelessly a disloyal community as was ever placed upon this earth."16 The murder sparked outrage among the former Confederate population, intimidating Republicans from coming to the polls, threatening the lives of the county's Black residents, and otherwise causing enough unrest for Governor Davis to declare martial law in the county on October 9, 1871, a critical moment in Texas's Reconstruction era history. One of the few white Republicans in the county testified to the chaos by making a special trip to inform the

13 Transcription, Bassett Archive. Reference to Canada may validate family remembrances that Henry lived for a time in Montreal, Quebec, possibly during much of the Civil War.

14 Several letters written by Rufus Pope to his sister Hattie Ford Pope are in the Bassett Archive.

15 Letters from D.C. and Eliza (Pope) Applewhite to Hattie Ford Pope, Bassett Archive.

16 Crouch, Barry A. and Donaly E. Brice. The Governor's Hounds, page 96.

Despite the social and political turmoil of Reconstruction, the Kosse area continued to develop and grow, and Henry Bassett committed himself to a more permanent legacy: his house. Newly married, Bassett began construction of a two-story brick house to replace the Jones house as his primary residence. Bassett's granddaughter, Mrs. Sparkman, recalled that the house had been completed in time for her uncle Jay Bassett's birth in 1875. The influence of Henry's wife Hattie Ford, who was raised in an agricultural slave-owning family in rural Mississippi and Louisiana, can be inferred.

The location they selected near the old Jones house is on a slight elevation, 400 feet east of the branch of Sulphur Creek that served as a water supply and set back 200 feet from the Kosse-Marlin Road. This road, the Falls County portion of which was laid out in the late 1860s, was extended after 1870 into the new town of Kosse and served as the primary route until 1952 between it and Marlin, the Falls County seat.

Unlike later tenant houses that were generally built close to the road to maximize the area available for cultivation, the Bassett House's position set back from the road was both practical and aesthetic. From a practical perspective, the location of the house emphasized privacy and minimized the impact of the dirt and noise generated by what was then a well-traveled, unimproved thoroughfare. Aesthetically, the house's position afforded travelers a broad prospect of the house that reinforced a sense of grandeur and, to a lesser extent, somewhat exaggerated its width and height while downplaying its single-room depth. The open space at the front of the house also sent a message that the Bassetts could afford to "waste" otherwise arable land by taking it out of agricultural production.

At the time the Bassett House was constructed, Bassett only owned 345 acres, a small fraction of what Bassett Farms would eventually encompass. The construction of a comparatively large, two-story brick house on the Texas frontier was a reflection of the capital that Bassett brought to Texas and his desire to establish a permanent seat after years of wandering across North America, rather than an indication of his success as a Limestone County farmer and rancher.

In scale, materials, and form, if not in detail, the Bassett House fits near the top of the relatively narrow scope of "elite" country housing in the region. The construction of elite housing was driven largely by the arrival of the slave-owning planter class in the 1850s. Where early stockmen lived in simple log houses and spent much of their time on far-flung grazing lands, planters had more complex architectural and social requirements: (1) a farmstead that met the need to house and feed the families of slaves as well as their own families; (2) agricultural buildings to support their cotton farming and to shelter the animals that powered equipment; and (3) a desire to impress and convey social status.

The sequence of construction laid out by the largest slave owner in Falls County in 1853, Churchill Jones, who lived about 20 miles west of Bassett Farms on the west side of the Brazos River, reflected a deliberate and phased approach to site development at the highest level. He wrote from Mississippi in a letter to his overseer, George:

James said as soon as he got back he was going to employ a white man and go to work on the cabins for my family. Tell him I want him to have very little to do with employing white men. They do not earn anything… I wrote to James some time back that I wanted cabins put up for us to go in first, and build [a house] after I get there. Two cabins 18 feet square, 12 feet apart, covered under one roof with rib poles 3 feet broad nailed on 6 pny. nails…

P.S… I have confidence in your judgment, in that you commenced last winter [1852] to make the negroes fix up in their houses and keep clean… I will give a description again of such houses as I want James to have put up for us to go in when we get there. Two split log pens of post oak 18 feet square, 12 feet apart, bodies 10 or 11 feet high between floors, hewed down a little outside and inside if they can do it, topped off with nice straight rib poles under one roof covered with 3 foot boards nailed on with 6 pny. nails -- chimneys of split logs above the mantle piece and then split sticks and mud to the top fire place, logged so as to rock up inside above the mantle pieces. The two pens floored above and below but not the passage between. Kitchen and servant houses the same way. Smoke house as large as it can be made, body 17 or 18 feet high, and logs to hang on every two feet after the first 7. In covering with 3 foot board you show one foot. These houses must not be put on the ground where I will want my dwelling house. Put a few feet back in the rear to one end, near enough for the kitchen and business houses. I think the chimneys of the houses should be set East and West. I mean of the double house, though I will leave it to your judgment. It requires a good deal of care about arranging the houses of a lot to be convenient, especially kitchen and smoke houses. There is a good deal of taste and judgment in arranging the house of a lot with proper order and convenience so as to appear well. First lay off the lot, and then plan how the houses ought to be set. Stick the stakes where my main dwelling house will be, and then go on to arrange how you will set the houses I have named above to be built first.19

In Limestone County, one of the finest antebellum houses was Pleasant Retreat on the Navasota River, constructed in 1855 for Logan A. Stroud (1814-1911). Stroud was the largest slave owner in Limestone County and his house was documented by Ernest A. Connally for the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1942 before its demolition in 1944. In assessing the house years later in 1998, Connally wrote:

Pleasant Retreat can be counted as an informative example of the second generation of domestic building in the historical development of Limestone County and eastern central Texas. It represents the ideals of Greek Revival architecture pragmatically adapted to pioneer conditions. The house was a type that existed all across the lower South. Its ultimate extension into central Texas occurred mainly in the last decade of the ante-bellum period, when it also reached its westernmost limit…

The front of the house was dominated by the central tetrastyle portico, the principal feature of the building, with its four box columns… Corresponding to the columns were pilasters where the portico joined the house and at the corners of the building. The entrance portal consisted of a single-leaf door surrounded by sidelights and transom lights…

Formal landscape treatment was limited to two pairs of cedars symmetrically placed with respect to the portico, a standard arrangement in the lower South. A broad lawn on the entrance side was clipped by grazing sheep.20

Connally expanded on this idea of Texas frontier classicism in a 1952 article for the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. He noted that "the restrictions of frontier conditions produced a pervading simplicity" and that "square-columned houses, which because of their obvious simplicity, abounded in a frontier society that was innately practical, yet determinedly classical."21 Such houses were typically planned around a central hall, with an ell extending the living space along one side, with a portico or porch on the front facade. Masonry versions could be kept cool with "solid shields of masonry" on the east and west walls.

The Bassett House, oriented to the south to capture prevailing southern breezes, is a post-Civil War house that follows the southern classical mode familiar to Hattie Ford, but with a variation likely derived from Bassett's origins in New England and the upper midwest. In plan, the central hall with primary living spaces arranged on either side, is typical of early 19th century classical architecture north and south. In form, the single room depth of the house, two-stories tall, reflects the northern and midwestern I-house form. The construction of a front porch (rather than a portico) supported by simple box columns is a practical, Southern adaptation to the I-house influenced by the local climate. The Bassett House's hybrid form and plan is a very late, regionally-influenced expression of Greek Revival style, with its strongest stylistic cues most clearly expressed in the single-leaf door with sidelights and transom lights reminiscent of those built twenty years earlier at Pleasant Retreat.

Other country houses built for prosperous farmers and ranchers during the Reconstruction Era in Falls and Limestone counties are more purely in the southern classic form than the Bassett House. The single-story Forbes House, built c. 1870 on the site of an earlier log dwelling three miles west of the Bassett House in Stranger, closely resembles Pleasant Retreat with its central, tetrastyle portico, corner pilasters, and central entrance (double-leaf) with sidelights and transom lights. Dr. Forbes, educated in New Orleans, was also an inventor and in later years proprietor of a successful cotton gin of his own invention.

Another important post-bellum example of an elite farmhouse in Falls County is the unlocated Jones-Battle House, last photographed in 1981 after its relocation. The single story brick house, like the Bassett House, dispenses with the narrow portico in favor of the more utilitarian full-facade porch, supported by square columns.

A number of frame houses built between 1865 and 1880 in and near Kosse were built in the I-house form with simple detailing.

What distinguishes the Bassett House from its Reconstruction-era peers is that it is the only known example of a two-story farmhouse constructed of brick. The only regional precedent for two-story brick houses were urban examples in Waco. Brick was an expensive material, deliberately chosen for both permanence and to reinforce Bassett's social standing through architecture. The brick he used could have come from one of three sources.

First, and most probable, is that the clay was sourced from a streambed or creekbank on the property or on a nearby property, and that the bricks were fired on the site. Again, Bassett's experience as a builder would have provided him with the knowledge to undertake brick production under his own direction, using unskilled labor to dig and cart the clay and otherwise perform the tasks necessary to form, cure, stack, and move the bricks around the property. The extensive use of brick for not just the house but also for a dairy, cistern, and well lends some weight to this theory, considering the crudeness of the unimproved road from Kosse and the difficulty in transporting such a large quantity it would have presented favoring on-site brickmaking.

Another possibility would have been for Bassett to arrange for the shipment of the bricks to Kosse by rail after which they would have been transported to the building site by the wagonload. Bassett's experience as a contractor would have made the coordination of a complicated rural building exercise less of a challenge than for others in the area. Estimating the quantity of brick needed, arranging its shipment, and having the capital needed to acquire and transport an expensive building material was well within Bassett's capabilities. Brick was not manufactured locally on a commercial scale until 1877, but brick was being used to construct commercial buildings in Kosse as early as November 1873, when the Galveston Daily News reported that "Kosse is improving. Several substantial brick storehouses are in course of erection…"22 One of those stores was likely Col. M. L. Jackson's large, two-story brick building that was built for $6,000, a 25'x125' structure said to be "the finest brick store on the Central Railroad."23

The third possible source of bricks could have been the local brick factory. This would require the date of the house's construction to be pushed back to at least 1877, when the Kosse Fire Brick and Tile Company was established on a 250-acre site east of town. The Kosse area had been recognized since the 1850s as having an excellent supply of kaolin to its east, between Headsville and Oletha. Early pottery making facilities were the first "industry" in southern Limestone County, such as the one established by Alberry Johnson at what became known as "Pottersville."24 Later, in the spring of 1877, J. W. Dillon and others in Kosse "organized a fire proof brick and tile manufacturing company, and are now prepared to furnish an article which will compare favorably with any Northern or European importations, and at a largely reduced cost."25 The bricks produced by the company in Kosse were shipped to customers as far away as Illinois. Bricks from the Kosse factory were also used extensively in town to construct commercial buildings between 1878 and its closure in the mid-1880s. One of its distinctive products, a light-colored hexagonal tile, has been found in various locations around the Bassett House grounds.26

23 "From Kosse," The Galveston Daily News, September 12, 1874 (Sat.), p1; digital image, Newspapers.com

24 The tall smokestack from the shop's kiln survives. A number of pieces produced by this facility are in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

25 "Limestone County," Galveston Daily News, May 26, 1877, page 4.

26 Specimens of Kosse brick and a brick [stamp/mould] can be seen at the Limestone County Museum presently located in Groesbeck. Approximately three dozen bricks of different makes and eras have been collected on the Bassett property.

As originally constructed, the house was approximately 42'x18', with two square rooms flanking a 9' central hall. A narrow staircase accessed two bedrooms upstairs; the original staircase was removed about 1956. Interior finishing was plain, with wood floors, simple baseboards, and plain, four-paneled doors. Original fireplace mantels were altered (west parlor) and replaced (east parlor) in 1956. Six-over-six window sashes appear to have not been protected by exterior shutters. Perhaps to keep the house cool, the east and west gable ends had a single opening on each floor on the south side of the chimneys. Upstairs at the rear is evidence of a single window in both bedrooms.

In the 1880s, a two-room brick ell measuring 28 feet long and 16 feet wide at back of the house on its west side created a file of rooms: parlor, dining room, and kitchen. The two rooms were divided by a wooden partition wall. The ell almost certainly replaced an earlier frame kitchen in the same location; evidence suggests that it was attached to the house, perhaps by an open, covered breezeway. Reflecting changing tastes and market conditions, the windows in the ell are larger than those in the older portion of the house and are made of two-lite sashes. Both the dining room and kitchen had exterior doors on the east facade accessing a porch which served as an extension of the front hall. An end chimney on the north gable end provided a heat source for cooking; a brick flue for a cooking stove survives in the northwest corner of the kitchen attic.

Closely associated with the kitchen and located adjacent to it is a brick outbuilding, identified by the family as a dairy. Its awkwardly close position relative to the present kitchen suggests that it predates the ell. Cut nails in the dairy's framing indicate a pre-1890 date of construction. The building is eight feet square with an extended roof creating a 6'x8' covered area at its front with an uneven brick floor. The brick walls of the dairy are two bricks wide, 6'2" tall with a later parge coat exterior finish. Wood nailing blocks set into the interior masonry provided a means by which to fasten wood shelving to the walls. The roof was covered by a single layer of wood shingles, and louvered openings would have allowed air to circulate through the building. The size of the dairy would have been adequate for the quantity of butter produced on the Bassett Farm. The thick brick walls would have kept the building cool; the interior shelves would have provided the space to store dairy products.

The Dallas Herald extolled the virtues of Texas as a dairying state:

All the world wants butter, all the world buys butter, and Texas is the place to make butter… With the rich Mesquite and Buffalo grasses indigenous to our soil Texas ought to and can surpass any State in the Union in producing milk and butter. The pasturage will keep the cattle fat all the year round and there is therefore no expense for winterfeeding, nor in our mild and equable climate for winter housing. Let every farm have its pastures and the gentle, patient, milch cows of the right breed and let the production of milk and butter be one of the industries of farm life, and Texas will in a few years surpass New York or any other state in the quality and quantity of her cheese and butter.27

The Bassetts were among those to engage in dairying. In 1880, there were eight milk cows at the Bassett Farm, and in 1879 a quantity of 150 pounds of butter was produced.28 The production of butter exceeded family uses and was intended for export and sale.29 In 1887, Galveston grocer J. P. Boone wrote to Mrs. Bassett about her butter shipments, noting that there was some confusion on account of some of her buckets having her husband's name on them.30 In 1889, Mrs. Bassett purchased a balance churn for more efficient production.31 Yet as late as the 1920s, a photograph documents the use of a hand-held butter churn at Bassett Farm.

27 "Queen Crumple," The Dallas Herald, 25 March 1880, page 4.

28 1880 US agricultural census.

29 In 1880, two of the Bassett's neighbors in the Hopewell Freedom Colony were producing butter in significant quantities. William Moton kept three milk cows and produced 100 pounds of butter, while Henry Jefferson kept three milk cows and produced 48 pounds of butter. Another neighbor, J. E. Vann, owned seven milk cows but did not report butter production.

30 Receipt, Bassett Archive.

31 Receipt, Bassett Archive.

Behind the ell and adjacent to the dairy, Bassett constructed a massive underground bell-shaped brick cistern, estimated to be at least 12 to 15 feet deep.32 The cistern was fed by water collected by gutters on the Bassett House ell which was then carried through a shallow brick trough just below ground level.

A square, frame building was constructed above the cistern, which probably covered a hand-operated pump that would provide the family with water for domestic purposes. The building might have also served as a laundry. The building was weatherboarded and covered with a wood shingle roof. A single-leaf door on the south facade was accessed by a wooden step, as the structure was elevated on brick piers. The Bassetts drank cistern water into the 1960s.

32 Preliminary archaeology conducted in November 2017 identified its size and location, but no excavation into the cistern was undertaken.

No farm or ranch operation could function without a barn. The large barn Bassett built was located northwest of the house and was a large, English-style barn, with a wide center aisle open on its long front (east) and rear (west) facades. This English barn was later expanded, taking on southern characteristics including a shed or leanto on its southern side to house equipment. Later, an extension to the north provided additional space, but there is no evidence of its layout or plan.

Along the branch of Sulphur Creek to the west of the house, Bassett constructed a hand-dug, brick-lined cylindrical well with an interior diameter of 32 inches and a depth of 20 feet. At the end of a dry summer, in September 2017, the well contained 12 feet of standing water or 835 gallons; it was not tested for the rate of replenishment. Above grade, the exterior of the well was covered in a parge coat. When it was first dug, the branch of Sulphur Creek on which it sits was likely further west than it is today. The large diameter of the well and brick lining identify it as being hand-dug, as driven or drilled wells are typically not more than eight or ten inches in diameter and lined with metal casings. Water would have been drawn from the well by a bucket-rope-pulley system. The sulphuric content of the water would have made it unsuitable for domestic use and instead this water would have been used for agricultural purposes.33

By 1871, the road in front of the Bassett Home Place had evolved into the primary route between Kosse and Marlin. Once Kosse became the terminus of the Houston & Texas Central Railroad, newspapers advertised stage routes leading to and from Kosse from all directions west, north, and east. The western stage route to Marlin and points west would have shifted from the old Alto Springs road as a result. Despite its local if not regional importance, the Kosse-Marlin road was unimproved, and travelers would have encountered two bodies of water between Kosse and the Bassett House: Tucker Creek and Sulphur Creek. Just beyond the house, the road crossed the Home Place branch of Sulphur Creek. All three creek crossings, which would have been served by simple plank crossings, are in Limestone County. Unfortunately, a series of county courthouse fires makes it difficult to gather evidence about the road's development.

In 1880, Henry Bassett reported to the U.S. census taker that he had spent $100 on fencing materials in 1879. This fencing material would have been barbed wire, which was available in the area by 1876. Bassett hadn't acquired any new land in 1879, suggesting that the fencing was being used to patch or improve existing fences or to create new, internal divisions within his property.

Acquisition of the Pasture (1880 and 1881)

Within a matter of months in 1880 and 1881, Henry Bassett acquired 306 acres in two adjacent tracts in Falls and Limestone Counties from Barzillai Jefferson "B. J." Chambers. Located across from the Bassett Home Place, the northern boundary of the Pasture was the old Kosse-Marlin Road. The purchase was significant as it was the first of many Bassett family land transactions that expanded the family's holdings around the Home Place first acquired in 1871. The Pasture was needed for Bassett's growing number of horses and cattle, and was never cultivated. Its close proximity to the Bassett's farmstead and access to Sulphur Creek, which runs across the Pasture's southern edge, provided an ideal location for grazing. The property also functioned as a buffer between the Bassett Home Place and the Hopewell Freedom Colony to its south.

Acquisition of the property in 1880 is intertwined with that year's U.S. presidential election. B. J. Chambers, the property's owner, was the Vice Presidential candidate for the Greenback Party. In July 1880, he was severely injured by a fall from the train platform at Kosse. He was in town to speak at a political barbecue at nearby Fairview Springs, and Henry Bassett was almost certainly among the 1,500 who attended. Chambers convalesced in Kosse for several weeks and Bassett probably met with Chambers to discuss the purchase of an initial 100-acre tract across from the Bassett House. On August 24, 1880, Chambers sold 100 acres to Bassett for $50 in cash and a note for $450 payable on November 1, 1880.34 Bassett purchased a second, adjacent tract of 206 acres for $618 cash on January 28, 1881.35

34 Deed, B. J. and H. A. Chambers to Henry Bassett, 24 August 1880, Bassett Archive.

35 Deed, B. J. and H. A. Chambers to Henry Bassett, 28 January 1881, Bassett Archive.

On December 1, 1882, the Bassetts sold the southernmost twelve acre portion of the 206-acre tract, bounded on the north by Sulphur Creek, to the Rev. Henry Jefferson, a founder of the Hopewell Freedom Colony, for $92 in cash and a note for $182 at 12% interest. Jefferson's son, Anderson, already owned an adjacent 28-acre tract. After the Rev. Jefferson's death in 1889, his widow struggled to make payments on the outstanding debt and transferred title to her sons Jack and Anderson on July 25, 1896. Jack and Anderson were unable to pay the notes held by Mrs. Bassett against the land, which included a portion of the original 1882 purchase price. In exchange for cancelling and surrendering the notes, Mrs. Bassett took title to the twelve acre lot on March 9, 1898 "and enclosed [the] same by fences," thereby reincorporating it back into the Pasture.36

"Wedge of Land" (1883)

In 1883, Henry Bassett acquired a 16-acre wedge of land from his neighbor to the west, J. E. Vann. The trianglepieced property was formed when the road (present day CR 244) was laid out at an angle, separating it from the remainder of Vann's 322 acres. The property was incorporated into Bassett's improved Home Place acreage; his widow would acquire the remaining 306 acres in 1892.37 36

Bassett Community School (1885)

Mrs. Bassett's early years in Texas were spent as a teacher; she met Henry Bassett while working as a school teacher in Kosse.38 Perhaps this experience, and her growing family, influenced her husband to pay for the construction of a school house on one acre across from the Bassett Home Place. The school was built by a local carpenter, Thomas M. Meek, and completed in September 1885.39

Bassett then deeded the one acre school site to Limestone County in November 1885 "for the use and public benefit of the public school in the Bassett Community."40 In 1897, the Groesbeck Journal reported that the Bassett

38 Hattie Pope was licensed to teach in Falls County on 27 September 1873 and in Limestone County on 1 March 1874. Certificates, Bassett Archive.

39 Receipt, 11 September 1885, Bassett Archive.

40 Limestone County Deed Book R:323, 12 November 1885, Henry Bassett to L. B. Cobb, County Judge.

School had 10 male and 4 female students. As one of the smallest of over 130 schools in Limestone County, it was allocated a mere $63 in funding. In 1906, the Kosse Independent School District greatly expanded its boundaries to include the Bassett Home Place.41 In 1918, after the "land [had] long been abandoned by said School Community," the one acre lot was deeded back to Mrs. Bassett by Limestone County.42

Hattie Ford (Pope) Bassett Ownership (1888-1936)

After Henry Bassett's death in 1888, his estate was challenged by his Connecticut wife who successfully established that she was his first and only lawful wife and was thus entitled to ownership of Bassett's Texas properties. However, not wanting to hold Texas land, she settled her claims with Henry's Texas wife, Hattie Ford, with acceptance of a cash payment.

At age 39, Hattie Ford Bassett was now set to become one of Limestone County's leading women cotton landlords. With her land titles secure, she made improvements to the adjacent Blum Place with the construction of a new tenant house [See Part 3: The Blum Place] in 1890. In 1891, she acquired the neighboring Mathis Place, a 290 acre tract in Falls County adjoining the Home Place to the north. The following year, she purchased the remaining 306 acres of the Vann Place in Falls County that adjoined the Home Place to the west. The combined acreage of the Blum, Mathis, and Vann places, all of which were put into cotton production, was 845½ acres. With the 395 acres of the Town Place and over 300 acres in the Cassiday Survey in cultivation as well, by the spring of 1893 her cotton empire had grown to over 1,500 acres. It would continue to expand in both Limestone and Falls County, and by 1917 her Limestone County holdings alone made her the 17th richest taxpayer in the county and its richest woman.43

The increase in cotton production on the Bassett property required the construction of a new building by about 1895, the cottonseed shed, a remarkable survivor and thought to be one of only very few such structures to survive

43 Groesbeck Journal in Texas, if not the south.44 As such, it is "a key location for recording agricultural history."45 It was originally located closer to the Bassett House, but moved for construction of the garage about 1955.

As noted by Dr. Evelyn Montgomery:

For sharecroppers and tenant farmers, cotton cultivation was a yearly gamble and a constant struggle… Clearly the seed stored in this outbuilding meant different things to different people associated with the Bassett Farmstead. Good agriculturists would always view seed saved from the previous year's crops as frugal and practical… The owner could see the shed as piled with future profit.

The laborers who gathered there to receive their allotment at planting time were entering into debt. Provision of seed, tools and possibly the mule that pulled the plow was part of the landowner's contribution to the growing effort. The contribution would be paid back at the end of a successful year, or added to the growing debt at the end of a poor year.46

Clad in 1"x12" vertical board-and-batten siding, the cottonseed shed measures twelve feet by twelve feet at its base, with a later lean-to at the rear. It is proportioned with an emphasis on height to enable its contents to flow downward with gravity. An opening on the east wall allowed for seed to be added to the building from the top. Inside, the floor consists of 1"x12" planks that run from front to back, and the same 1"x12" lumber was used to line the interior surface of the four walls. These interior planks protected the exterior from outward pressure and reduced the stress on the framing. With an interior volume of approximately 850 cubic feet, the structure would have held up to ten tons of weight on account of the when filled with the heavy, oil-laden cottonseed to just below the opening on the east wall.47

44 E-mail correspondence, Texas Historical Commission SHPO and other SHPOs in cotton states.

45 Siebler and Montgomery, 3.

46 Siebler and Montgomery, 3.

While Hattie Ford maximized acreage for cotton production, she retained the Pasture solely for livestock grazing. The 306-acre tract was also important for her tenants and neighbors, who paid her to use the Pasture for grazing. This was a valuable community resource, enabling her neighbors and tenants to grow more cotton on their small plots by moving livestock off of their property. A surviving journal from 1891 records those who made use of her Pasture and their payments.

While some paid her in cash, others bartered domestic service. Hattie Ford recorded that Rena Jones paid her grazing debts by cleaning the Bassett House, washing, and ironing.

Hattie Ford's relationship with her neighbors, particularly her Black neighbors on the south side of the Pasture in the Hopewell Freedom Colony, was complex. She relied on them for farm and domestic labor while they relied on her for loans. Established as early as 1870, the Hopewell Freedom Colony and its associated church, cemetery, school, and lodge hall was founded by Black landowners but included Black tenants on her own property among those who participated in its institutions.

In the late 1890s and early 1900s, a younger generation of Black farmers sought new opportunities elsewhere. The Oklahoma Territory drew a number of Hopewell's families, and Hattie Ford had the resources to acquire their farmsteads when they were ready to sell. Beginning in 1898 with the foreclosure of the Jefferson family's debts on a 12-acre tract she and her husband sold to them in 1882, over the next seventeen years she would come to own the original Freedom Colony farms of Anderson Jefferson, Henry Jefferson, William Moton, Edmund Taylor, and Robert Green as they died or moved away, totaling about 200 acres. Averaging about 40 acres each, these farms were interlaced with washes feeding into Sulphur Creek and did not offer the wide open spaces of her larger acquisitions. Regardless, she rented them to additional tenants, making use of existing structures and making minimal improvements where needed.

By the early 1900s, more than forty families are said to have been living at Bassett Farms. Despite her growing wealth in land, she remained frugal, and improvements to her home and farmstead were minimal. A number of new utilitarian structures were added by about 1900, including a storage shed, at least two small barns, and a carriage house. The storage shed is the only one of these buildings that survive. Its purpose is unclear, but its small size and sturdy form lends itself to a number of possibilities, and was likely used for different purposes over time.

The Curing Shed measures 12'2" x 14'3" and is 13'6" tall. It is constructed using a technique called box framing, which relies on the exterior sheathing to provide structural support instead of wall studs. In this case, the 1"x12" board siding is nailed at each end ot the top and bottom sills. A door centered on the south gable end provides access to the building, and on the east side a three foot by two foot hatch provides exterior access. The floor joists were supported by dry-stacked brick piers. Most of the nails used in its construction are round or wire nails; recycled building materials incorporated into the structure are of earlier date, some of which retain 19th century square or "cut" nails.48

Modest changes to the Bassett House c. 1900 included the addition of lamp fixtures manufactured by the Angle Lamp Co. in every room. Lamps manufactured by The Angle Lamp Co. were being advertised in Brownsville as early as 1898.49 They were in place by 1903, when it was reported that Mrs. Bassett hosted a wedding at her "country residence" and that the "parlors of the Bassett home were brilliantly lighted…"50 In the yard just east of the house are the remnants of a metal tank associated with a later acetylene generator.

In 1903, Hattie Ford's oldest son, Jay, was deeply in debt to his mother and deeded to her his legal interest in the Bassett property as well as title to the 90-acre Hirshfield Farm that he had purchased in 1897 from the estate of John S. Hirshfield. Jay was married with twin daughters and had been involved in a range of financial adventures that included prospecting for gold in New Mexico and selling bicycles in Kosse. Popular and outgoing, he was elected Mayor of Kosse by 1905 and was serving as Mayor when he was killed with shotgun upstairs in the Bassett

48 Siebler and Montgomery, page 9.

49 Brownsville Herald, 6 April 1898, page 2.

50 "A Surprise Wedding," Belleville (Kan.) Telescope, 7 August 1903, page 1, reporting on the wedding of a Kansas resident who had gotten married on a trip to Kosse.

House in 1907. It was reported as an accident, although some have speculated that his death, which occurred on his 32nd birthday, was intentional.

With Hattie Ford Bassett's middle son having died at age 12 in 1892, her youngest son, Willie Ford Bassett, now 22, would be left as sole the heir to Bassett Farms and become actively engaged in its management for the next sixty years until his death in 1967. While the Bassetts continued to manage their cotton tenants through the next 25 years, Willie Ford took a particular interest in livestock, purchasing pedigreed polled Hereford cattle and Poland China pigs. This probably led to the extension of the barn more than once.

In order to more efficiently provide water for agricultural use, the Bassetts installed a windmill and elevated water tank at the old brick well on the Sulphur Creek branch.

The windmill replaced the original bucket and pulley system and was probably manufactured by the Aermotor Company, which supplied countless Texas farms and ranches with a means to harness wind power.

Elevated water tanks allowed for a gravity-fed water distribution system. These structures were found throughout central Texas and in an emergency would also supply water for fire suppression. A network of metal pipes moved the water to the farmstead where it could be used by livestock. Later, after electricity arrived c. 1935, an electric pump was installed in a small corrugated metal pump house.

Hattie Ford had special interests of her own: her garden, her chickens, and her turkeys. Her garden was probably located on a slightly elevated terrace on the eastern side of the front yard of the Bassett House. She wrote frequently about it in family letters:

● April 17, 1919 to Irys Bassett: "Our garden is just fine. I took off forty little chickens this morning, but the hawks are so bad they catch them every day. I have just lost my good luck. I don't think I am going to raise my turkeys either."

● June 30, 1926 to Fred Glass: "I have a nice garden and a big bunch of turkeys."

● August 2, 1926 to Gladys and Fred Glass: "My turkeys came up so I had to stop and feed them and I did not get to finish my letter."

● June 13, 1927 to Gladys and Fred Glass: "We had such a nice rain this morning [and] it looked like we were going to get a storm, but we just got a nice rain. The crops look nice in here. The month of May was dry and farmers had a good time to work out their crops, on our place every thing looks promising. I have about sixty little turkeys and lots of little chickens, and a fine garden."

● April 19, 1928 to Gladys and Fred Glass: "We just have the nicest garden and [more] little chicken[s] but Willie does all of that now."

● May 11, 1931 to Gladys and Fred Glass: "We hav'nt any crops it stays so cold but our garden is so nice."

● April 17, 1932 to Gladys and Fred Glass: "We are having some dry weather, farming seems at a stand still. It rained so much in the spring they couldn't plow and when it quit, they plowed the land too wet and it broke up in big clods, then the freeze came and killed what corn was up and lots of the oats, killed our garden every thing but the onions. Willie broke it up again and planted and it is real pretty now… I have forty five little turkeys."

● June 5, 1932 to Gladys and Fred Glass: "We have a wonderful garden but the crop is sorry. I haven't many little chickens either."

● June 19, 1932 to Gladys & Fred Glass: "Everything at home is getting along nicely, we have a nice garden and the crop is good, if we can get any thing for it that is the trouble."

In 1916, a series of canceled checks for lumber culminating in the purchase of a porch swing document the date of construction of a new two-story porch on the Bassett House. After forty years, the original one-story porch appeared worn by sun and rain, with buckled decking. Willie Ford was married with three children living in the house, and a two-story porch would provide room for a large second-story sleeping porch. The second story porch would also help to shade the upstairs bedrooms in the house. Screens were later added c. 1920.

Photographs from the late 1910s and early 1920s provide rich visual documentation, although they are largely focused on people rather than the structures and features behind them. One of the first observations is the lack of vegetation in front of the house. A photograph taken from the upper level of the porch looking south across the front yard reveals a relatively barren landscape to a cultivated field. To the west (right), the area with the corral is screened by trees.

Photographs taken from the west side of the house at the rear show the side yard in use as a chicken yard in the early 1920s. A bell has been installed at the top of the cistern building.

About 1920, a white, wooden (probably cypress) square picket fence was installed across the front of the house and extending some distance to the west toward the barn in a straight line. The fence served to reinforce a separation between the front yard, which would have been accessible to visitors, and the more private domestic area beyond. The fence expressed a sense of refinement; its value is reflected in that the Bassetts kept the pickets after it was dismantled for unknown reasons before 1942.

In the early 1920s, at least one new outbuilding was constructed, and two of the buildings received modifications. The new structure was built about 1920 at the front of the house on the west side. The building differed from other buildings in its exterior finish: shingles. The modest craftsman-inspired building might have served as a farm office to provide a space for the Bassetts to conduct their farming, ranching, and oil prospecting business and to meet with visitors on related business in a private space away from the house.

The Dairy, likely built at the same time as the original house c. 1875, was modified in the 1930s with installation of windows at the front and rear, perhaps replacing earlier wooden louvers. The purpose of these 1930s windows, one of which retains a Lustraglass label from the American Window Glass Company, seems to suggest its possible conversion to a playhouse.

Another building that received a new use around this time was "Shed C." The interior of the building was lined with newspaper, one of which dated to May 30, 1932. This was at a time when the region suffered through a deep agricultural depression, and the shed may have been used as a bunkhouse. The paper would have helped to cut down on drafts in the uninsulated building. Patched siding at the rear also suggests the possibility that the shed was fitted with a window.

Bassett Farms and the Kosse Oil Boom (1922-1926)

The first commercially successful oil field in Texas was developed at Corsicana, about 60 miles north of Bassett Farms, in 1894. The discovery of a major oil field at Spindletop in the upper Gulf Coast region of Texas in 1901, which produced 17.5 million barrels of oil in 1902, launched a period of investment, discovery, and development that had significant impacts on the Texas economy. The potential for wealth that could be earned through subsurface minerals, rather than above-ground grazing and planting, drew independent oil explorers, known as "wildcatters," to various parts of the state in search of "the next Spindeltop."51

As early as 1918, the Bassetts were being solicited to lease their land for oil and gas exploration.52 It wasn't until wildcatter A. E. Humphreys came to Limestone County that oil prospects at Bassett Farm began to rise. In 1920, wildcatter Humphreys discovered a new oil field near Mexia in northwestern Limestone County. By 1921, an offset well drilled by Humphreys was producing 4,000 barrels per day, and the Mexia oil boom was born. By the end of 1921, 6.1 million barrels of oil had been produced in the field as oil companies struggled to build the infrastructure necessary to store and transport the oil. The field was located along the Woodbine Fault-Line in the Mexia Fault Zone.53 This zone, extending into Falls County, became the focus of exploration by Humphreys in the Kosse area in 1922. Late in the year, a test well proved to be a major success, producing enormous quantities of oil for [two weeks] until it suddenly went dry.

The discovery of oil near Kosse by Humphreys at his Humphreys-Jones well took place on property adjacent to Bassett Farms. Humphreys signed a lease with the Bassetts to drill an offset well, known as Humphreys-Bassett No. 1, on the Bassett's 395-acre Town Place. Although neither of the two Bassett wells drilled in 1922 became producers, the value of their various oil leases that year still exceeded $100,000.

51 Olien, Roger M. "Oil and Gas Industry," TSHA Handbook

52 Oil and Gas Lease, unsigned, between A. J. Culbertson and Mrs. H. F. Bassett, 8 October 1918, Bassett Archive.

53 Smith, Julia Cauble. "Woodbine Fault-Line Fields," TSHA Handbook.

News of the "Kosse gusher" drew tens of thousands to Kosse to see the well, while many came to make their fortune. The Fort Worth Record-Telegram reported that "a new town is springing up one and a half miles west of Kosse. A spur track will be built to it and business is keen in realty property."54 Where just one derrick was to be found at the Humphreys-Jones site, once oil came in, it was reported that within two weeks "almost a dozen derricks may be seen."55

54 "New Town is Springing Up Mile West of Kosse," Fort Worth Record Telegram, 26 August 1922, page 5.

55 Houston Post, 3 September 1922, page 9.

The population of Kosse ballooned almost overnight from several hundred to nearly 20,000. Kosse went through three mayors in three days as it struggled to manage the ensuing chaos of investors, prospectors, and oil field workers seeking their fortunes. Roads were jammed with vehicles heading to Kosse to see the gusher, and Falls County undertook improvements to the Kosse-Marlin Road. A tent city emerged around the Humphreys-Jones well. But just as suddenly as it emerged from underground, the Jones well dried up. The Bassett well became the center of the oil world for several months as Humphreys drilled, but it did not become a producer. Remnants of above-ground earthen berms built to hold oil remain on the Town Place.

Another test well was drilled by wildcatter Dick B. Mason on the Bassett's Blum Place and was known as the Mason-Kosse Syndicate No. 1. [See Part 3: The Blum Place].

Subsequent efforts to discover oil continued with the Pandem Oil Company's major test well on "the branch" of Sulphur Creek on the Blum Place in 1926-7. The Bassett family's oil lease revenue for 1926 totaled $146,645.56

Despite the new wealth the Bassetts earned in the 1920s, apart from the construction of the probable farm office, they made no improvements to the house or grounds during the decade. At the time of Hattie Ford Bassett's death at the age of 85 in 1936, the Bassett Home Place largely resembled what it had looked like forty years earlier.

The death of Hattie Ford Bassett during Texas’s centennial year, 1936, marked the end of an era in the Bassett family. Willie Ford Bassett (1885-1967), the youngest and only surviving child of Henry and Hattie Ford Bassett, was the sole heir to the Bassett Farm. By the time he inherited the property, he was already managing its operations. In the 1930 U.S. census, his mother was listed as a stock farmer, and Willie Ford was recorded as the "manager" of the stock farm. It is of note that they chose not to represent themselves as cotton farmers, despite the extent of the cotton farming that they oversaw on their extensive acreage. Perhaps the Bassett's early 20thcentury livestock experience made it much easier for the family to transition from a predominantly cotton tenant farming business to a predominantly livestock business during the 1930s. This transition was, perhaps, symbolically represented by the accidental burning of the large old barn in the fall of 1936.

It was in the fall of 1936 that the large old barn burned to the ground. This expansive wood-framed structure northwest of the house provided a visual anchor within the farmstead and also represented the scale of agricultural operations at Bassett Farms. Expanded over the years, the barn had become more artifact than necessity, and its replacement was much smaller.

In the 1939 and 1940 aerial photographs of the Bassett Home Place, the western half of the property appears to have recently been used to grow cotton. The newly-constructed stock tank suggests that the transition to grazing cattle was underway. A fence likely defined the abrupt and sharp transition between these former cotton fields and the thickly vegetated riparian areas along the Sulphur Creek branches. The Bassett House was partially surrounded on the north and west by thick vegetation, with open fields to the west and to the south across the Kosse-Marlin Road.

By 1942, the wooden picket fence that stretched across the front of the Bassett House had been removed and had been replaced by a border of rocks, likely extracted from creek beds.

Electricity came to Bassett Farm by 1949. For some time prior to this, power was generated using a “Model S” carbide pit generator manufactured by Colt. Carbide pellets would be dropped into a tank of water that could generate acetylene gas. A portion of the tank is visible above ground northeast of the house in the rear yard. The arrival of electricity was celebrated with new appliances. In a letter from Willie Ford Sparkman to her parents on April 30, 1949, she wrote from her home in Dallas:

We have been looking around at some electric fans. There are surely some nice ones, and they will help a whole lot at home. I declare, I am so proud of the electricity, and the stove and ice box are going to be simply wonderful. I can hardly wait for you to get them in the house … I will be ready for some nice home made ice cream. Is your little fig barrel about empty?

An aerial photograph taken on December 9, 1952 reveals few changes to the overall landscape of the Home Place since 1940. Along the southern edge, the Kosse-Marlin Road remains unchanged. The western portion of the Home Place still appears to be divided into the same northern and southern sections that were visible in 1939 and 1940. There is minimal vegetation intruding in the pastures, and the straight fenceline between these grazing pastures and the riparian areas to the east remains in place.

A 1955 aerial, somewhat clearer than the 1952 aerial, shows the emergence of small mesquite trees and other small woody vegetation throughout the western half of the property. The southwest corner of the Home Place has been cut by a new road bed with a new bridge over the Sulphur Creek branch, eliminating the sharp corner.

The 1955 aerial documents the location of most of the early, surviving outbuildings. The large barn that burned in 1936 has been replaced by a smaller wood-framed barn with a corral on its north and west sides. The barn likely stored hay for feeding cattle. A direct route from the road to the barn has emerged, making it easy to back up a truck with an attached trailer loaded with cattle to the corral, or to load up a flatbed with hay to take out to the fields. The garden is still clearly defined with a buffer of vegetation on its west side. Evidence of an older corral on the south side of the road that would have served the Pasture is evident. Several unidentified structures can be seen behind the Bassett House; some of them may have been relocated from the area where the garage would be built sometime after 1955.

By 1965, mesquite, honey locust, and other woody species flourished throughout the open fields. A north/south division between the western half of the Home Place is still evident. A small pasture at the southeast corner of the Home Place is being cultivated for hay. A new stock tank has been constructed in the riparian area behind the Bassett Farmstead.

The U.S. Geological Survey's 1965 Kosse West topographical map more clearly demonstrates the extent to which woodland cover had encroached into former cotton fields in the western half of the Home Place. The map highlighted the Bassett House (dark black rectangle) as well was five related outbuildings. The new stock tank behind the Bassett House is also shown.

Considerable changes took place between 1955

1965

1. The house was overhauled with a new two-story porch on the front (south) facade and a new two-story bathroom tower was built at the rear. A newspaper dated September 29, 1955 was founded beneath the kitchen linoleum. Interior paneling was likely installed at this time in the west parlor, dining room, and kitchen.

2. The garage was constructed at the rear of the Bassett House to its northwest.

4. A stock tank was constructed immediately behind the Bassett Farmstead.

5. The wooden pole barn was constructed in the field to the west of the Bassett House.

6. A barn was constructed on the south side of LCR 668.

Henry Bassett's Granddaughters: Third Generation Ownership (c. 1965 to 2010)

By the early 1960s, all three daughters of Willie Ford and Lula (Harper) Bassett were living in Dallas and were at the center of the city's social life. The eldest, Zelma Bassett, was married to Dr. Ramsey Moore, the leading society pediatrician. Daughter Willie Ford Bassett was married to a surgeon, Dr. Robert Sparkman. The youngest, Hattie

Ford Bassett, was unmarried. Correspondence from the Bassett daughters, none of whom had children, to their parents in Kosse reflect their close relationship with frequent travel between Kosse and Dallas, as well as their increasing influence on the management of the Bassett Farm.

Zelma was the most directly involved in the Farm and was actively engaged in the Polled Hereford cattle breeding operation. She owned her own cattle separately from those of her father. Zelma also oversaw significant changes to the Bassett House. In a letter to her parents on August 20, 1964, she wrote:57

The man, Mr. Austin Bryan, said that he would get started on the house right away - next week. We are going to repair the walls, and foundation first, so it will not disturb you all. He is going to use some of the porch lumber, but I told him to have them take it up easy, so we could use whatever was left over to build sheds and things. The porch will be bricked and so pretty. That will be done after the brick and foundation are fixed. You let me know if I can do anything to help with it. How are your cantaloupes, tomatoes and peaches holding out?

In an undated letter from Willie Ford Sparkman to her parents, probably soon after the completion of the renovations, she wrote:58

I think the house is so pretty and I am so happy the way it has turned out. The porches are so wide and they go with the house just right. Pop looked so cute sitting out there waiting for us to come home.

In 1967, Willie Ford Bassett died at the age of 82. Two years later, his widow, Lula, died, and the property was left to their three daughters equally. It was during this time that they began to discuss the future of the preservation of the Bassett Farm while continuing to manage the cattle operation. Zelma also spearheaded efforts to exploit the property's mineral resources, and directly managed the Farm's accounts and expenses from her home in Dallas. The Bassetts, particularly Zelma and Willie Ford, would make regular trips to the Bassett Farm to pay farm hands such as B. D. "Uncle Beady" Jones.

In 1970, the Home Place was connected to the local water utility, Tri-County Special Utility District. The water supply line approaches the property from the west along the south side of the road; two meters are located on the south edge of the lawn on the north side of the road. Water lines were laid around the perimeter of the lawn, with hose bibs installed along the south, west, and east sides of the lawn. Several more are located near the Bassett House, some with a cast quail handle. There is also a hose bib at the southeast corner of the hay barn. The installation of these water lines on July 11, 1970 probably coincided with the abandonment of the use of the cistern, the well, and the creek-side pumps that had supplied water for use on the Home Place for one hundred years.

It was probably around this time that approximately 1,100 linear feet of metal fencing was installed to enclose approximately 1.6 acres surrounding the Bassett House.59 The fence consists of metal posts and metal pickets welded on two rails; the posts support sections of fence that vary from 6 to 10 feet in length with the majority being 9 feet. The metal posts are set in concrete although many are loose.

● The west section is approximately 240 feet long. A pedestrian gate is located about midway of the total length.

● The south section is slightly longer and is approximately 280 feet long, with a cattle guard and main entry gate flanked by pedestrian gates. The east gate is functional; the west gate is welded shut.

● The east section is approximately 150 feet long consisting of fifteen 10-foot sections. Between this east fence and another 90 foot section on the same north-south axis is a short 40-foot east-west section. The 90 foot north-south section that terminates at the northeast corner of the yard has a pedestrian gate and three loose posts immediately north of the gate.

● The remainder of the fence at the north boundary of the yard consists of an additional 230 feet in three sections. There are two pedestrian gates and an ungated cattle guard.60

The introduction of numerous water spigots around the Bassett House yard made it possible to easily water newly planted flower bulbs and small ornamental trees. Willie Ford Sparkman would cut many of these flowers to decorate her home in Dallas. Trees that were introduced along the fenceline that survived until at least 2012 were predominantly crape myrtles, pomegranates, cherry laurels, pears, and quinces.61

On August 7, 1972, Zelma Moore opened a Bassett Farm checking account at First National Bank in Dallas, with its first major deposits being two bonus consideration checks totaling $25,417.50 from Southern Union Production Company for their lease of an interest in the Town Place. Among the purchases made were a car ($3,202.90) and pick-up ($3,064.86) from Friendly Chevrolet and a $500 donation to the “Hopewell Baptist Church of Kosse, Texas.” The records of this Dallas bank account from 1972 to 1983 provide a partial record of ranch activities and improvements; records of another farm account, kept at a bank in Kosse, have not yet been located. Typical farm-related expenses included:

● December 1972: $7,250 to Boyd Industries [of Boyd, Texas], manufacturer of cattle feeders

● September 1977: $55.58 to Sears for barn paint

● April 1980: $450 payment for hay planting

● April 1981: $3,361 to Mr. Novak for hay planting and Bremond Feed & Fertilizer Co.

● May 1981: $5,000 for tractor and shredder

● May 1981: $574.77 to Craddock Lumber Co. for “farm lumber”

● June & July 1981: Checks to Wildcat Construction Co. for “Fence around back barns $1,800;” “bulldozing, fence repairs & materials, $2,101.25” and $5,579.50; “corral repaired and fences, $1,432.55” and additional fence repair checks for $213, $635.52, $646.75, $830.50, $253, and $1,051.25, $1,143.25, and $1,063.25.

● December 1982: $570 for ten 14-foot panels for working cattle and chute repairs

● January 1983: $563.80 for corral repairs, $195 for Prince Place fence repairs, $195 for additional fence repairs, and $438 for five metal hay feeders

● February 1983: $328 for fence repairs and $295 for fence repairs on the Irwin Place

● March 1983: $550 to John Alexander for coastal sprigs and planting 25 acres

● September 1983: $3,000 for 2,000 square hay bales

The revenue from oil leases in the 1970s also likely provided the cash necessary to construct several new metal metal structures, all of which were completed before 1981. These were the 50'x30' hay barn, the 30'x30' equipment shed, and a smaller 40'x30' barn by the road. Each of these buildings replaced earlier wooden structures and were built to serve the needs of a cattle operation with limited hay production, as well as maintenance of the yard around the Bassett House.

In 1975, Hattie Ford Bassett died, and Zelma and Willie Ford became partners in the operation of Bassett Farms, with Zelma continuing to negotiate oil leases and manage the sale of cattle and the payment of ranch hands. On August 25, 1980, Zelma deposited a check for $105,508.50 from Trend Resources for a new natural gas lease. One year later, on August 26, 1981, she deposited a second check in the same amount from Trend Resources. This company built a natural gas well and tank in the Pasture, serviced by an improved road and a bridge over Sulphur Creek. These were likely constructed in 1980 and these features appear on the 1981 aerial of Bassett Farms.

During this same time, in 1980, Zelma Moore recorded that there were 476 head of cattle at Bassett Farms and identified the pastures in which they grazed:62

*Town

*discontiguous parcels that are not the subject of this study

62 Handwritten note with 1972-1983 checking account records. Bassett Archive.

Few physical improvements were made to the property between 1981 and 2010. A small new stock tank was constructed at the southwest corner of the Home Place after 1981 in the former roadbed of the Kosse-Marlin Road, and a tin-roofed covered storage area was added at the rear of the garage. As Zelma and Willie Ford got older, the frequency of their visits to the farm decreased and they increasingly relied upon ranch hands.63

The most significant change to the landscape occurred between 2004 and 2008 when extensive clearing was undertaken behind the Bassett farmstead's outbuildings. Presumably this was an attempt to expand areas available for grazing adjacent to the farmstead. Some of the area north of the pond had previously been open pasture as late as 1955, but had become overgrown by 2004.

After Mrs. Sparkman's death in 2010, extensive survey, assessment, and maintenance work, as well as some changes to site features, were undertaken, particularly after the 2012 property transfer to Preservation Texas.

PRESERVATION TEXAS OWNERSHIP (2012 to PRESENT)

2011

The entire property was surveyed by Kling Engineering, including a detailed topographical survey of the area around the Bassett House.

2012

Students from the University of Texas at San Antonio made measured drawings and plans of the structures on the Bassett Farmstead, including the Bassett House, dairy, cottonseed shed, storage shed, wooden pole barn, and three metal pole barns (Attachment A). Sparks Engineering provided a structural assessment of the Bassett House (Attachment B). Catherine O'Connor of the landscape architecture firm Co'design documented and assessed the landscape around the Bassett House (Attachment C). She made preliminary recommendations for improving site drainage around the house. Scott Felton, a Waco banker, rancher and McLennan county judge, was retained to undertake an agricultural assessment of Bassett Farms (Attachment D). A conservation assessment was also prepared by former Texas Parks and Wildlife staff member Carolyn Vogel (Attachment E).

2013

Preservation Texas retained a local firm to clear approximately 15' width along the property's perimeter fence lines. A security system was installed in the Bassett House by Dedmon Security. A simple wooden fence was added at the property entrance with a new gate by grazing tenants Tim and Karen Partin. Fencing around several outbuildings was removed and a new wooden plank fence was added to the north and northeast perimeter of the farmstead. The history of the Bassett House and its contents was prepared by board members Lynn Vogt and Margarita Araiza (Attachment F). The Austin-based historic preservation architecture firm VOH was retained to prepare plans for stabilization of the Bassett House.

2014

The tree survey was updated and recommendations for tree removal were made by Austin Tree Specialists (Attachments G, H). A successful application for Recorded Texas Historic Landmark designation was made to the Texas Historical Commission prepared by board member Rick Mitchell. Plans for the restoration of the front porch were amended by VOH upon discovery of historic photographs of the porch (Attachment I).

2015

Students from Texas Tech University in Lubbock under the direction of Dr. Elizabeth Louden completed a historic structure report for the Bassett House (Attachment J). A short video was produced by Mark Birnbaum of Dallas (https://vimeo.com/169148634)

2016

Selective tree removal was undertaken based on recommendations of Austin Tree Specialists. Diseased and damaged trees were limbed. Board member Tony Crosby prepared an updated conditions assessment of the Bassett House and outbuildings (Attachment K).

2017

A board workshop developed ideas for the use of Bassett Farms (Attachment L). The land was reappraised for its current market value (Attachment M). Ron Siebler and Evelyn Montgomery prepared a historic structures report for the Bassett farmstead outbuildings (Attachment N). Texas Historical Commission volunteers undertake preliminary excavation of several site features around the Bassett House with a focus on locating the underground cistern. Plumbing to the Bassett House was detached and work began on conversion of the garage to serve as two apartments.

2018

Grazing on the Bassett Home Place is terminated and the property is removed from local tax rolls. The use of the corral behind the barn was ended and its function moved to former corrals across the Kosse-Marlin road. The Texas Conservation Corps completed a proposal for a trail linking the Bassett Farmstead to the two Bassett Home Place ponds. (Attachment O). The garage project was completed. A septic tank was installed behind the garage.

2019

Board member Tony Crosby completed a mothballing plan for the Bassett House in January (Attachment P). Students from the UT School of Architecture completed an analysis of the materials (wood, stucco, mortar) in the Bassett House and outbuildings (Attachment Q). The mothballing plan was implemented in May and a historic marker dedication event took place at the Bassett House in June. Electricity was added to the hay barn, the dirt floor was graded and covered in gravel; new closing mechanisms were welded to the four barn doors and a gutter system was installed.

2020

PT hosted the Texas Cultural Landscapes Symposium in Waco which included a field trip to the Bassett Home Place. Students from the UT School of Architecture (landscape architecture) completed a studio program at Bassett Farms that was curtailed by the pandemic. PT extended a 2019 agreement with Texas Parks and Wildlife to restore native grasses and forbs to areas at the Bassett Home Place; the project was later postponed and subsequently canceled; can be renewed based on recommendations of the CLR. (Attachment R).

2021

A major freeze in February damages vegetation. Work began on the exterior restoration of the Bassett House in October (Attachment S), as well as restoration of the Cottonseed Shed and Curing Shed. Preservation Texas acquires the former Kosse City Hall at 103 North Narcissus Street in Kosse as a future Bassett Farms Visitor Center.

2022

Work continues on the exterior of the Bassett House. The Cottonseed Shed and Curing Shed projects are completed. Work begins on the restoration of the former Kosse City Hall.