Fourteenth Generation

8384. William BASSETT²³ was born between 1595 and 1600 in in or near Sandwich, Kent, England. He died in Jun 1667 in Bridgewater, Plymouth Colony, Mass. He was a REFN: 2254. William came on the Ship Fortune; resided at Duxbury and Bridgewater, Mass.; was a gunsmith and metal worker. The Bassett family in Sandwich, England is Huguenot per Barber's "British Family Names"

William is of the Sandwich, England and Bethnal Green, Middlesex line.

The surname appears in 1066--Thurstine de Bassett was Grand Falconer to the
Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. The name is thereafter notable in England - in the Domesday Book as well as the Battle Abbey Roll. Thurstine built Beaupre Castle near Cambridge in Glamorgan, Wales, soon after the Conquest, and his son Ralph was Lord Chief Justice of England under King Henry I. Another Bassett castle is at Tehidy Park in Camborne, Cornwall; this line had large incomes from mining. Two Bassetts were among
the King's counsellors at the signing of the Magna Charta. The Leyden, Holland record indicates that "Pioneer" William Bassett came from Sandwich, England, a master mason, widower of Cecelia Light. William was Representative, 1640-44; with Gov. Bradford and others he joined in the purchase of Dartmouth and moved to Bridgewater, Mass. in 1652.
Arriving in 1621, he was one of the "purchasers", first in Plymouth with his wife, Elizabeth, and son, William, and daughter, Elizabeth, and took part in the division of cattle in 1627; then resided at Duxbury; then was among the first settlers and a proprietor of Bridgewater.
"Pioneer" William Bassett was baptised at Stepney, 24 Oct 1600, per Charles Edward Banks, "The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers" (Balt.:Gen.Pub.Co.,
1971), p.106, who also states that he arrived in America never married and married there before the land division of 1623!

"The Mayflower Planters" (Balt.: Gen.Pub.Co.) lists William who arrived on the Fortune in 1621 as married to Margaret Oldham and settled in Duxbury, an "iron monger from Bethnal, Co. Middlesex," whose father is John Bassett. Also see the "Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families." (Note: Mary and Elizabeth are often the same name - Mary Oldham may be Elizabeth Bassett.) Cf. "Plymouth Colony," Eugene Stratton, pp. 242-3; "One Bassett Family in America," Buell Burdett Bassette (New Britain, Conn.: 1926), pp. 1-10. William BASSETT and Elizabeth NEIL were married about 1622 in Sandwich, Kent, England.

8385. Elizabeth NEIL²³ was born about 1603 in Sandwich, Kent, England. She died in 1649/50 in Duxbury, Plymouth Co, MA. A footnote on "Gen. Notes of Barnstable Families" reports "His
wife Mary

presented the inventory of his estate, May 12, 1667, and took
the oath

required. The names Mary and Elizabeth were formerly considered

symonymous, and it may be that Mary was not his second wife."
The text

states "His wife was named Elizabeth and it is stated by Judge
Mitchell

that she was probably a Tilden." The proposed Tilden ancestry is
given in

this database. Children were:

4192	i.	William BASSETT.
	ii.	Elizabeth BASSETT.
	iii.	Nathaniel BASSETT.
	iv.	Joseph BASSETT.
	v.	Sarah BASSETT.
	vi.	Ruth BASSETT.
	vii.	Jane BASSETT.