Dea. Samuel Bass

1600-1694

Born 1600

Died 1694

Children include John

Samuel Bass was married at St Mary the Virgin, Saffron Walden, a market town in north-west Essex, on 25 April 1625. Under the heading "Aprill 1625" the register reads "Samuell Basse & Anne Savell the 25". His bride was a daughter of William Savell, a joiner of the town.

Where Samuel was born, and to whom, is not known. His age at death places his birth about 1600. Several Basse households lived at Saffron Walden and at Little Chesterford nearby between 1560 and 1640. He named sons John and Thomas, and a John and a Thomas Basse were buried at Saffron Walden between 1622 and 1628. No baptism or will ties him to any of them. A claim that he was a son of Humphrey Basse of London does not fit: that Samuel was living in Virginia in February 1624/5, two months before this wedding.

Three of the couple's children were baptised at St Mary's: Samuel on 11 May 1626, John in the autumn of 1630 and Ann on 25 October 1632. A daughter Mary was born about 1628.

In 1633 the family went to New England and settled at Roxbury. Samuel and Ann were entered as members 78 and 79 of the church kept by John Eliot, the Roxbury minister. They were listed with Nicholas Parker, who also came from Saffron Walden, and William Cornwall of Essex. Samuel was made a freeman of the colony on 14 May 1634.

About 1640 the Roxbury church released them to the new church at Braintree. On 5 July 1640 Samuel was ordained its first deacon. A deacon was a lay officer of a Congregational church. He served the bread and wine at the Lord's Supper and looked after the church's poor. Samuel held the office for more than fifty years.

Ann's brother William Savell also came to Braintree, and died there in 1669. In his will he called Samuel Bass his "brother". That word, a brother-in-law in the usage of the time, is what ties the Braintree deacon to the Saffron Walden marriage.

Ann died on 5 September 1693, aged ninety-two. Samuel died on 30 December 1694. The town clerk's entry for his death counted his descendants.

Children

John Bass 1630-1716

Sources

Saffron Walden parish register, Essex Record Office D/P 192/1/1, image 90; image via WikiTree Basse-112.

Image via WikiTree Basse-112; source document not stated.

Hancock Cemetery, Quincy, Massachusetts; photograph by Robert Murowchick, 2021, Find a Grave memorial 9529169.

Hancock Cemetery, Quincy, Massachusetts; photograph by Kristin Jones, 2009, Find a Grave memorial 9529169.

Saffron Walden parish register, Essex RO D/P 192/1/1 and /2 (images via WikiTree Basse-112); NEHGR 107 (1953):218-220; R. C. Anderson, Great Migration Begins 1:122-127 (as quoted on WikiTree); Records of the Town of Braintree 1640-1793 (Bates, 1886), deaths; Boston Evening Transcript, answer 2718, 1912 (FS 3:1:3Q9M-CS3Y-D9GL-6); C. T. Bass, Descendants of Deacon Samuel and Ann Bass (1940); Find a Grave 9529169.

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Cite: Heirology, "Dea. Samuel Bass (1600-1694)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/dea-samuel-bass-1600-1694-6c1452.