Colonel Richard Bass Ancestor Saturday

Repost from When I Was 69 Jan 3, 2014:

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Note to my occasional readers: I plan to post a genealogy record just once a week (Saturdays) for the next year...so some of my ancestors may not be honored on their actual birthdays.  I've got too much else to talk about, and there are really a million people on that family tree, going back to someone named Lillith and Adam.

Richard Bass was born in Perry County, AL on 3 JAN 1819.  He was the father of my grandfather's mother, Bettie Bass Rogers.  He served in the Confederate army in Mississippi (from Texas).


His father's estate had a petition against it which gives Richard's birth as 1814.  This date is not corroborated by his census data as well as his grave marker which all reflect an 1819 birth.  So the legal petition in Alabama was wrong apparently.  Another source has him born in NC rather than AL.  Wherever he was born, he was the youngest of 8 children of his parents, and his father died when he was very young, and he was raised by a step-father. His mother was Julia Ann Holloman Bass Green.  Father was John Bass, both from Wayne County, NC, which is near where I currently live.  His step-father was Jetson Green, who raised him from when he was around 6 years old.

He married Mary Ann Elizabeth Powell on 12 Oct, 1839 in Perry AL, at age 20.  They moved to Louisiana, Union Parish, by the time he was 30, according to the 1850 US Census records.  The birth places of his children put that move between 1841 and 43.

Then the family moved again, according to 1860 Census records, to Walker County, Texas.  His age is listed incorrectly as 20, though he is definitely 40.  At the cusp of the Civil War he was middle aged.

Downtown  Huntsville, Walker County, Texas 1870s

Next census for 1870 shows him in Walker County, working as a merchant, rather than a farmer as he had previously identified himself in census reports.  Being a merchant meant he probably lived closer to a town at this time, perhaps Waverly, where he died.

Ancestry lists 5-11 children for the family.  But nick-names might be the source of some of these children, though their dates again are different.  According to census records, at least one child was a cousin who lived in their household and moved with them.  Emily W. Traylor, b. in 1847 in LA was Mary Ann Powell's cousin, and I'm not sure the exact relationship, but several Traylors were reported in various Powell and Bass households in the census reports.  Most of the Bass children were born in Waverly, Texas or Walker County, Texas.

Col. Richard Bass died 5 May 1880 in Waverly, Walker County, TX, where he is buried.  The Handbook of Texas History says

In 1986 all that remained of Waverly was a cemetery, a nearby Presbyterian church, and a rural subdivision called Old Waverly, which had a population of about fifty people. Texas historical markers were erected for Old Waverly in 1969 and for the Waverly Cemetery in 1978.

More information about the settlers moving to Waverly includes this:

In the autumn of 1852 some 300 people from Alabama, including slaves, moved into the Waverly area. The town was surveyed, mapped, and incorporated in 1858. According to popular legend the town was named for the Waverly novels of Sir Walter Scott. Some considered Waverly to belong to the South of "moonlight, magnolias, and landed gentry." In reality it was a small enclave of the slave-plantation system imported from central Alabama. Waverly Institute, consisting of a male and female academy, was established in 1856. A post office operated from 1855 until 1872. A Masonic lodge operated from 1861 to 1865, and Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian congregations were started in town.

What became of the tiny town?

In 1870 San Jacinto County was formed from a part of Walker County, including the Waverly area. At that time Waverly leaders, in fear that the Houston and Great Northern Railroad would bring "tramps and ignorance to the town and kill cattle," refused to give the railroad right-of-way. In doing so they ensured the rapid demise of Waverly. The town of New Waverly was established ten miles west of Waverly in 1870 to take advantage of the railroad and became a prosperous town .

A bit more information can be found here...about Waverly, Texas. 

I'm submitting this post to Sepia Saturday, for the reason that it has some relationship to transportation, in that the town of Waverly failed because of their decision to not allow the railroad access to it...and just because I like sharing my ancestor stories there.  It's one of the few places that I know folks seem interested in photos and stories having to do with history!  Come over to see more...HERE.