Letter to Doctor Andrew Bass
Contributed by Sloan Mason

Doctor Bass

In my peregrinations upon this God's green footstool I have come to find that there are two kinds of history, one that is romantic and rambling, the other factual and to the point. The first is hand-me-down from generation to generation, of which Julia Peel Holmes was chief practioner. Don't be surprised to find embellishment from telling to telling. The other usage is to mold every phrase and syllable in immutable stone as did the Medes and Persians. But here lately happenstance put to paper to rest upon a court shelf does not last forever.

When Uncle Jim was clerk of court, his daughter Lucy was put to transcribing the musty deeds of Wayne going all the way back to New Bern before the pleasant groves and meadows hereabout were part of Johnston, Dobbs, and then of Wayne.

Lo, there was Dr. Andrew Bass preserved in tawny parchment, the precious indentures of endless acres of land grants from George II to the Basses. The first grant to Andrew Bass I in 1739 was said in Craven, but now-a-days in Wayne. By the time son Andrew was growed a man the Bass estate stretched from the yellow Neuse to the muddy Thoroughfare. The lords of vast estate willed never oak tree should be felled; for acorns were the ordained sustenance of hogs. And hardly should part or parcel pass the threshold, but be held forever to build the family name. Bleak years do take their toll. Andrew Bass, patriot, soldier, legislator, innkeeper, was blessed with only one child. Anna Bass married Gen. James Rhodes. They had Clarissa who married Richard Blackledge Hatch. That's where Cousin Lucy took to take an interest.

It prided Lucy much to find us documented. That was the time when Kaisar Wilhelm was about to take over where George III left off and there was a surge among the ladies of Wayne and Duplin to join the Daughters of the American Revolution. In Mt. Olive were the Kornegays, Southerlands, Cousin Clara Loftin, the Laban Lewis crowd, the McGee sisters (Lizzie Brazzeale, Carrie Mintz, Julia Southerland), all busy beavers looking at some of those beloved scrolls, begrimed with genteel sweat and lamps of kerosene, have not stood the light of modern day. But the papers which Lucy filled out on Doctor Andrew Bass have needed change, not jot nor tittle.

Dr. Bass's proud name is not among the living. His books of law and medicine and French and English literature are no more. Now his narrow road beneath a gnarled cedar is watched by coons and possums out the Thoroughfare.

Author unknown
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