Edward Bass 1754-1802

Great times four grandfather, from Johnston and Wayne County, NC.

NOT Edward Bass

This is a typical outfit that a man in 1770 would have worn.  You've probably seen many other costumes which include knee beeches and hose, as leading into the American Revolution.  But when working on his land, I think this would have been more likely.

The family tree has gone into a mess about all the Bass children/uncles/and grandparents.  Edward Bass will be my focus for this post.

Four family trees give his birth dates as 1752, 1754, 1761 or 1762. They do agree he was born in Johnston County, North Carolina. I believe he had 8 siblings, four brothers and four sisters.

He married a woman named Sarah. I saw a document of an Edward Bass marrying Sarah Farmer, but now I can't find it on my Ancestry documents. (Don't you just hate that when you know you saw it, but where is it now?) Anyway, that is all that would have had her be of that family, and my ancestry tree had that just fine until I looked at a bunch of other trees.  They say Sarah was Sarah Stevens.

So I'm glad that I won't be trying to follow her family at this time, either the Farmers or the Stevens.  We do know she was Sarah Bass at the time of her husband's death, 1802 and her own, 1826 because of all the difficulty in settling the estates.

By 1768 this Bass family apparently lived in Wayne County, rather than Johnston County NC.  The records of the births of their children give us that clue...as well as some census reports.  (Of course I'm not absolutely sure when or where some of these children were born.)

It is likely that he fought/contributed goods to the American Revolution. His survivor's pension was denied, but I don't know who applied for it or what it said, only a notation that he served 9 months.

As he died in 1802, apparently the will that had been probated was later contested by his daughters (and their husbands) who stated that they had been underage at the time of his death, and that Sarah, their mother had also died in 1826 and thus the land that she inherited from the contested will should also be divided to include these two daughters. I think that's a summary of the claims, but it isn't very clear.

The rest of many pages of court documents don't give answers, but just more questions.

I'm glad that other descendants are just as confused as I am, but hope someone can make sense of who was related in what way to whom.