Elizabeth Bassett

• Seen as child of Thomas Tilden & also of Richard Neale

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William Basset married Elizabeth _____ by 1623 (and probably by 1621). She came to Plymouth with him as a passenger on the Fortune in 1621. She appears in no record after 1627, and may have died soon after the birth of the last child about 1634, or she may have lived until just before William Bassett married his second wife.

She & William had six children: William Jr., Elizabeth Burgess, Sarah White, Nathaniel, Joseph & Ruth Sprague Thomas.

Elizabeth Bassett BIRTH May 1603 Kent, England DEATH 1650 (aged 46–47) Bridgewater, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, USA BURIAL Unknown MEMORIAL ID 34839526 · View Source

MEMORIAL PHOTOS 0 FLOWERS 29 William Basset married Elizabeth _____ by 1623 (and probably by 1621). She came to Plymouth with him as a passenger on the Fortune in 1621. She appears in no record after 1627, and may have died soon after the birth of the last child about 1634, or she may have lived until just before William Bassett married his second wife. She & William had six children: William Jr., Elizabeth Burgess, Sarah White, Nathaniel, Joseph & Ruth Sprague Thomas. Source: Anderson's Great Migration Study Project

Biography

Elizabeth T died at Plymouth, Devonshire, Eng.

• Anecdote*: She was a passenger on FORTUNE, arriving in North America in 1621.1,2
• Married Name: Her married name was Bassett.
• Birth*: She was born circa 1603 at Tenterden, Kent, Eng.
• She was the daughter of Thomas Tilden and Elizabeth Focell. UNPROVEN
• Marriage*: Elizabeth Tilden married William Bassett, son of William Bassett and Cecelia Light, UNPROVEN in 1621 at Plymouth, Plymouth Co, MA; 1st m. for William.1,2,3
• Death: Elizabeth Tilden died before 1651.4
• Family: William Bassett b. c 1595, d. 10 Apr 1667
• Marriage*: She married William Bassett, son of William Bassett and Cecelia Light, in 1621 at Plymouth, Plymouth Co, MA; 1st m. for William.1,2,3

1. William Bassett b. c 1624
2. Elizabeth Bassett b. c 1626
3. Sarah Bassett+ b. 1630, d. 1711
4. Ruth Bassett b. c 1634
5. Joseph Bassett+ b. 1635, d. 1712
6. Nathaniel Bassett (of Yarmouth)+ b. 1638, d. 16 Jan 1710

References

• http://www.laurenandtristan.net/4dec10update/p8.htm#i216 cites
• [S49] PAF 5, 17 Jul 06.
• [S157] Unknown compiler, Mayflower Passengers.
• [S403] New England Immigrants, online http://www.ancestry.com, no maiden name given.
• [S403] New England Immigrants, online http://www.ancestry.com

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December 13 in 1621, the ship Fortune set sail from Plymouth Colony. The arrival of the vessel two weeks earlier — sent by the English investors who had funded the Mayflower colonists— should have been a cause for celebration. But for the Pilgrims, Fortune was poorly named. The ship brought 35 new settlers, but none of the expected supplies. With new mouths to feed, rations were reduced by half. Worse, the investors demanded that the ship return immediately to England, stocked with trade goods. The Pilgrims complied by loading Fortune with "good clapboard as full as she could stow" and two hogsheads of beaver and otter skins. The Plymouth settlers struggled under the demands of their English investors for seven years before buying out their shares and earning a measure of freedom.

Background

When a small group of religious dissidents first gathered in the town of Scrooby, England, in 1606, they had no intention of becoming pilgrims to North America. They simply wanted to establish their own church, where they could practice their Christian faith in what they held to be its true form, stripped of Anglican ritual and hierarchy. But in England at that time, the Anglican Church was the state church; to separate from it was against the law. When the Separatists persisted, bishops and sheriffs pursued and hounded them until, in 1608, they sailed for the Netherlands, hoping to find refuge under the more tolerant Dutch government.

Holland proved to be a safe place but not a happy one. Because they were not Dutch citizens, the English Separatists had limited employment opportunities. Over the years their standard of living declined dramatically. Fearing poverty — and worse, that their children were becoming Dutch — the Separatists made the decision to establish a colony in America.

But funding an overseas voyage and establishing a colony would be expensive. There were, however, a number of wealthy gentlemen, merchants, and craftsmen in London who believed that there was money to be made from exploiting America's natural resources. What they needed was a base for gathering and shipping furs, timber, fish, and other trade goods. A group of about 70 of these speculators, whom the Separatists called Adventurers, put up the money to transport and provision the colonists; in return, the colonists, or Planters, agreed to live communally, to work for the company, and to ship goods back to England for a period of seven years to repay their debt.

After several aborted attempts, the Mayflower sailed from Plymouth, England, on September 6, 1620. It was bound for the area around Manhattan in the northernmost part what was then Virginia. No one knows whether the ship was blown off course or purposely headed to a location out of the jurisdiction of the Anglican Church, which was established in Virginia. In any case, the Mayflower anchored in Provincetown harbor on November11th. Some of the non-Separatists on board objected that since they had not gone to Virginia, as planned, they were not bound by their work contracts and needed to take orders from no one. After debating the issue, the group agreed "that we should combine together in one body, and to submit to such government and governours, as we should by common consent make and choose." All free adult male passengers signed the historic Mayflower Compact, the first document in the Americas to embrace the democratic principle of majority rule.

After exploring the area north and south of Cape Cod, the colonists settled in Plymouth. Due to the lateness of the season, they set to work immediately building shelter. It was a severe winter; during the first few months, nearly half the 102 Mayflower passengers died. There was no doubt great ambivalence among the survivors as they watched the Mayflower depart for England in early April of 1621.

The key to their survival was the good will of the local Indians, who helped them plant corn and other crops that would thrive in Massachusetts. In the autumn, the Native people and the English gathered together for a festival; an abundant harvest promised to sustain them for the coming winter. The Pilgrims looked forward to the arrival of the next ship from England, which they expected would be laden with much-needed provisions, clothing, and other essentials.

But when Fortune sailed into Plymouth harbor on November 10th, it brought only more mouths to feed. While the Planters were grateful for the additional workers, they were dismayed to discover that the men had been sent without provisions. The ship did not even carry food to sustain the crew on the return trip. The Adventurers also sent a letter castigating the Planters for the fact that the Mayflower had arrived in England with an empty hold and demanding that the Fortune return immediately filled with valuable goods.

The colonists complied. For the next six years, they sent sizable shipments, especially of furs, back to England. But the goods yielded far less profit than the Adventurers had anticipated, and as the seven-year mark approached, the colonists were still in debt. Finally, 27 of them pooled their personal resources and paid off the debt. Once free of the requirement to live communally and hold all property in common, the original settlers divided the land into private grants. The era of the "Old Comers" was over.

In 1945 Plymouth resident Henry Hornblower conceived the idea of re-creating the "Old Comers'" village. Doing so would be a challenge: no image or record of the first buildings survived. The original site was buried under the center of modern Plymouth and inaccessible to archeologists. But Hornblower, who had been fascinated with the history of Plymouth since his youth, persisted. In December of 1945, he persuaded his father, a Boston investment banker, to donate $20,000 to the Pilgrim Society for the purpose of reconstructing an authentic Pilgrim village and Native American settlement. In 1947 the Pilgrim Society incorporated Plimoth Plantation, now one of the nation's leading outdoor history musems.

Sources

Plymouth Colony: Its History & People 1620-1691, by Eugene Aubrey Stratton (Ancestor Publishing, 1986).

Mayflower Remembered: A History of the Plymouth Pilgrims by Crispin Gill (Taplingher Publishing Company, 1970).

12/22/2021

Elizabeth _________ (unknown maiden name) Bassett. William Bassett's 1st Wife

I recently "inherited" this memorial and based on clear research sent to me, as well as from the best source cited below, the original Bio showing this Elizabeth as having the surname Tilden is flatly incorrect. That Bio remains below for now but should NOT be used. The birth and death information has also been changed to show very general estimated information since exact information is not known. The death estimate could be off by 10 yrs in either direction. She did disappear from the records after 1627 and may have died soon after their last child was born in 1634 or sometime before his 2nd marriage to Mary Tilden, daughter of Nathaniel Tilden, as stated in The Great Migration Begins (see details below).

For the best research on William Basset and his family see the following. I have (for now) posted a pic to help counter the pic posted by "Carl" in 2019 which I cannot remove. Information on the reliability or the lack of it in that source (U.S. and International Marriages...) can be found below. Further pages from the following source can be accessed by members of Ancestry.com or the New England Historical and Genealogical Society.

Title: Great Migration Begins, Vol 1, A-F
Source Information
"Ancestry.com. New England, The Great Migration and The Great Migration Begins, 1620-1635 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.
Original data:Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Volumes 1-3; The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volumes 1-6. Boston: New England Historical and Genealogical Society, 1996-2011."

Nathaniel Tilden did NOT have a daughter named Elizabeth and Nathaniel and family did not arrive here until 1634, not in 1621. William Bassett DID marry Nathaniel Tilden's daughter MARY as his 2nd wife, which is in The Great Migration Begins which is cited above. It all adds up to the original Bio below incorrectly using the cited source above and using unsourced material from a record cited below, so the Tilden maiden name has been removed from this memorial and other information changed.

Also, The photo that was posted in 2019 of an Ancestry "record" showing Elizabeth Tilden as William Bassett's wife has no credence as far as being a sound secondary source. That's not to say none of that database's information is accurate but it should not be accepted without further research. Here is the description of it from Ancestry's site:

"Source Information
Yates Publishing. U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.
Original data: This unique collection of records was extracted from a variety of sources including family group sheets and electronic databases. Originally, the information was derived from an array of materials including pedigree charts, family history articles, querie."

Thanks for your understanding, John K.

INCORRECT ORIGINAL BIO. DO NOT USE:
Elizabeth is the daughter of Nathanial Tilden and Lydia Hatche Huckstepe.∼William Basset married Elizabeth _____ by 1623 (and probably by 1621). She came to Plymouth with him as a passenger on the Fortune in 1621. She appears in no record after 1627, and may have died soon after the birth of the last child about 1634, or she may have lived until just before William Bassett married his second wife.
She & William had six children: William Jr., Elizabeth Burgess, Sarah White, Nathaniel, Joseph & Ruth Sprague Thomas.
Source: Anderson's Great Migration Study Project

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Jun 7 2022, 10:38:40 UTC