Bassett Settlement
My Story by Keith E. Hayes
My mother Martha G. Hayes-Kennedy (picture to left , with father Robert Hayes (Hay) (holding me) and my Grandmother Pansy Noyes-Kennedy) told stories of a black settlement near Kokomo, Indiana founded by relatives and how they were self-sufficient and owned their farms, as well as having their own school and church. I never remembered the name of the settlement but never forgot. However, while doing my ancestry research (including a DNA ancestry test), I re-discovery those descendants I remember talked about actually lived in the historic Bassett settlement of Ervin Township in Howard County IN. My research also showed the settlement as being part of the Under Ground Railroad where many slaves were sheltered and hidden.
The Quakers play a big part in establishment of the Bassett\Ellis\Rush settlements. It was only later in my life that I was told that the settlement was derogatorily referred to as "NIGGER PIKE" by local white settlers. The original land maps also show the roads leading into the settlement as "colored".
The original founder of Bassett settlement (Est 1830-1840) was Britton Bassett (my 4th great grandfather). He was part of the “free-born color people of North Carolina” that courageously traveled to Indiana for a better future, possibly some of the first blacks to settle in Parke and Howard county. I found numerous newspaper clippings, stories, essays, books, PhD dissertations on the Bassett settlement and other pre-Kokomo (before 1855) African American settlements and cemeteries. The only remnants of the settlement is the Bassett "colored" cemetery, near Kokomo Indiana, in which I have visited and recorded what remains of the site. I have yet to find documentation detailing why the settlement faded and disappear, although newspaper clippings show taxes owed and medical debts by some of the landowners.
His grandson Rev. Britton Bassett continued the leadership of the flourishing settlement until it faded from existence for various known and unknown reasons and causes. But their roots extend to many present-day descendants who still live in Kokomo and surrounding cities. Rev. Richard Bassett was the 2nd black elected to the Indiana state legislator (1892) and the 1st minister of 2nd Baptist Church of Kokomo. Miles Bassett was well known for helping to fund and build churches in Indiana also educated by Quakers.
One relative, Cyrus J. Colter a well-known fiction writer, contain the following about Britton Bassett as a preface to his best-known novel “The Rivers of Eros (1991)”
“On both side of the family his ancestors were free blacks who had settled in Indiana several years before the Civil War. Colter possesses a ledger tracing his mother’s family back to Britton Bassett, the son of a black man and a white woman in North Carolina, who was granted his freedom in 1797 when he was twenty-one and given a horse, bridle and saddle, and one hundred dollars. In the 1830s Bassett moved his wife and children to Indiana, traveling by night and hiding by day in order to elude slave hunters.”
See more info: https://scuffalong.com/…/family-cemeteries-no-18-bassett-c…/
Bassett Settlement History
Bassett Settlements: Originally consisted of the following families, Artis, Ellis and Kennedy (Canady) Families) , Jones, Kirby Briggs
The Rush Settlements: Originally consisted of the following families; Rush and Hardiman families
History of Howard County As written by Richard Kastl in 1982
Howard County was once a major center of anti-slavery sentiment. This sentiment was very strong in the western part of the county around the towns of New London and Poplar Grove. The settlers there were mostly members of the Friends Church and felt obligated to assist runaway slaves in their quest for freedom. This usually took the form of feeding the former slaves and hiding them from anyone hunting them. The so-called “Underground Railway” flourished in pre-Civil War times and resulted in a sizeable community of blacks in northwest Howard County. The towns of Bassett and Rush in Ervin Township were originally black communities.
Bassett Settlement - Original Families
The following families were the original settlers of what is commonly referred to as the Bassett Settlement (Named after the founder : Britton Bassett). This information is obtained from the a Land Map of 1877.
BASSETT SETTLEMENT FAMILIES
1. W. Bassett
2. J. Bassett
3. H. Bassett
4. R. Griggs
5. H. Bassett Jr
6. O. Ellis
7. R. Bassett
8. M. Artis
9. W. Canddy (Kennedy)
10. M. Artis
11. M. Gammond
12. W. Gammond
13. Hall
14. Tyler
15. Harper
16. Hartwood
RUSH SETTLEMENT FAMILIES
1. L. Rush
2. M. Howard
3. J. Rush
4. Hardiman
Home State Greene County, NC
Life In North Carolina
Like many free African Americans living in North Carolina in the 1830s, Britton Bassett and his grown sons did not fit into the well-established social order of a slave state. In North Carolina there was room for the rich planter, the poor white farmer, and even the slave, but the freeman’s place was hard to define. 'The existence of the freeman was contrary to the image that most white Carolinians had of their society. To many slave-owning southerners, the “benevolent” institution of slavery provided guidance and stability to a savage race. A freeman, living on his or her own, without the benefit of a master, was contrary to that belief. To others, the freeman was a bad influence on slaves because slaves might decide to seek a life without a master.
Bassett and his sons were skilled craftsmen. Britton was a tailor by trade, and three of his sons were carpenters. This fact made them good targets for white anger during times of community stress, such as after the publication of David Walker’s Appeal in 1829 and Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in 1831. Both events were partially attributed to freemen or slaves given too much freedom. Many whites, especially those in the lower economic classes, were resentful of free and successful blacks who they believed competed with them for the lowest-paying positions in the North Carolina economy. As a result, freemen in North Carolina and in other parts of the South learned to navigate in a quagmire of nasty public opinion, unfair laws, and an unfriendly economic climate. Consequently, many freemen chose to leave their homes and migrate to the North to make a better life for themselves and their families. Parke County, Indiana, was such
a place.
(See Hackett, Brian L. "Hoosier Freemen: Harboring Negroes in Antebellum Parke County." Indiana Trace of Indiana and Midwestern History,Summer, 2009)
Life of a slave and free-born colored
The Migration from North Carolina to Indiana
The Path from North Carolina to Indiana circa 1830s
The Westward Migration Routes involved travel by Covered wagons horse drawn. the by boat or ship. Getting out of North Carolina for a runaway slave or free-born was a treacherous path.
One relative, Cyrus J. Colter a well-known fiction writer, contain the following about Britton Bassett as a preface to his best-known novel “The Rivers of Eros (1991)” . The journey was documented in a family ledger:
“On both side of the family his ancestors were free blacks who had settled in Indiana several years before the Civil War. Colter possesses a ledger tracing his mother’s family back to Britton Bassett, the son of a black man and a white woman in North Carolina, who was granted his freedom in 1797 when he was twenty-one and given a horse, bridle and saddle, and one hundred dollars. In the 1830s Bassett moved his wife and children to Indiana, traveling by night and hiding by day in order to elude slave hunters.”
The road he took was probably "Boone' Trail" out of Salisbury NC to Boonesboro Ky. Then meeting up a the "Great Emigrant Road" to Louisville, Ky, then getting on a boat at the Ohio River, heading westward along the Indiana border then connection to the Wabash River heading northward to their first stop in Parke County, Indiana.
The indiana Settlements
My genealogy research indicated my relatives settled other areas before reaching Howard County.
Parke County : Bassett, Artis, Decendants:
African American Rural Settlements Documented: We Do History: Indiana Historical Society By Dona Stokes-Lucas, August 1, 2014
Parke County was formed in 1821; by the 1830 census, there were 16 free persons of color. By 1840, that number had nearly quadrupled (to 63), and by 1850, it soared again (to 228). Some of the increase in 1850 may be attributed to a local resident who had inherited some 50 enslaved people after the death of a relative in Alabama. The people were subsequently given their freedom and transported from Alabama to Parke County (Hackett). Also in 1850, there were four black landowners with real estate valued at $2800 (Heller). In the ensuing years, the black population dropped (to 196 by1860, and to 152 by 1870). Most of these African Americans were in and around the town of Rockville, as well as Adams Township and Penn Township. During 1850-1870, Raccoon Township also saw an increase, while Washington Township saw its population decrease.
Some of the early residents were free Africans Americans from North Carolina and Virginia, whose surnames included Artis, Bass/Bassett, Ellis, Hall, and Hartwood. They would move from Parke County to Howard County in the late 1850s (Hackett) and may have had ties with the Lost Creek settlement in Vigo County. Other surnames included Tyler and Harper.
Other descendants settled in Vigo County - Otter Creek, Lost Creek and Nevins, Clay CountyHoward County - Ervin Township (Bassett Settlements established here)
Howard County Bassett Settlement in Indiana
Map of Early Black Settlements
Excerpt from Indiana Historical Society
We Do History: Indiana Historical Society
African American rural settlements documented: 2
Howard County was established in 1844. The county had a healthy African American population that grew steadily from its first federal decennial population census taken in 1850; it registered 105 black people that year. It enumerated 165 blacks in 1860 and 304 in 1870. In both 1860 and 1870 about a third of the black population in the county lived in Ervin Township. There were also large population numbers in Clay and Monroe Townships and the city of Kokomo (Centre Township).
Around 1840, the Rush Settlement was formed in Ervin and bordering Clay townships. The settlement had a school and a Methodist church. In the 1870 census, men surnamed Hardiman and Rush are listed as farmers. Wm. Hardiman had land valued at $2,600. The school, church and cemetery (located at 450 N.) were on Hardiman’s land. Although there were less than 25 blacks counted in all other Howard County townships, the 1850 Clay Township census enumerated 63. Prior to the establishment of the Bassett Settlement, Ervin Township listed only 16 African Americans in 1850.
During the 1850s, the Bassett, Artis and Ellis families left Parke County, Indiana, and established a settlement in Ervin Township. (The Bassett and Artis families were free African Americans who came to Indiana from North Carolina.) At least 11 families lived in this area that became a small farming community of blacks sometime known as the Bassett Settlement or the Bassett and Ellis Settlement. They had a school, church, cemetery (located at 950 W.), general store, blacksmith shop and a post office. Some of the other surnames associated with the settlement include Canady, Griggs, Jones, Kirby, Mosely, and Wilson.
Zachariah and Richard Bassett served as ministers at the Free Union Baptist Church in Howard County. The 1870 census list Bassetts, Artis, and Ellis as farmers. Richard had land valued at $8,400 and Morrison Artis’s land was valued at $2,800. In 1892, Richard Bassett became the third black person to be elected to the Indiana state legislature.
According to Emma Lou Thornbrough, the Bassett and Rush settlements were located near the Poplar Grove Friends Meeting and both communities disbursed after the Civil War, with most residents moving to Kokomo (Howard County) or Logansport (Cass County).
Further research needs to be done on a possible black settlement in Monroe Township. Ishmael Roberts came into the county around 1850. The 1860 census lists John and Thomas Roberts. They appeared to have lived outside of New London in Monroe Township.
By Lishawna Taylor, July 30, 2014
