Family:William Bassett and Sisle Lecht (1)

This William Bassett did not travel on the Fortune in 1621.
COMMENTS FROM: The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Volumes I-III. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2010), (Originally Published as: New England Historic Genealogical Society. Robert Charles Anderson,

In 1611 a William Bassett, formerly of Sandwich in England, widower of Cecily Light, was twice betrothed at Leiden in Holland. His first bride-to-be died, but he succeeded the second time. Some have held that this was the man who came to Plymouth, but this seems unlikely given the ten-year gap before the arrival in Plymouth in 1621, and the lack of evidence for children of the Plymouth man born before that date, assuming that he had been married at least twice before. It is also possible that the William Bassett of Leiden in 1611 was the father of the immigrant to Plymouth in 1621, but there is no evidence directly favoring this hypothesis.

If the two-acre grant to William Bassett in 1623 was for William and his wife Elizabeth, then the first child would not have been born until 1624, three years after William's arrival in Plymouth. It is possible (though not likely) that the marriage took place in Plymouth, and Elizabeth came on the Fortune as a single woman.   Savage has misread the 1627 Plymouth cattle division, somehow including daughter Sarah Bassett in this list, when in fact only two children, William and Elizabeth, were included. Sarah must have been born soon after 1627, however, to have married by the end of 1648.   Pope claims that William Bassett resided at Sandwich in 1650, but this would be the son of the same name.

Various secondary sources claim that William Bassett volunteered for service in the Pequot War, and in the index to the first volume of published Plymouth Colony records he is listed for the page on which such volunteers appear, but he does not actually appear in the list [PCR 1:61]; a number of the index entries for William Bassett actually seem to be for William Paddy.

On 6 March 1648/9 William Bassett was fined 5s. "for not mending of guns in seasonable time," and on 9 June 1653 he was fined 10s. "for neglecting to publish and make known an order directed to him from the council of war, prohibiting provisions for being transported out of the colony" [PCR 2:137, 3:36]. On 9 August 1655 and 10 June 1661 the colony treasurer received payment of fines by William Bassett [PCR 3:93, 8:104].

" There is no evidence THAT the William
 Bassett of Leyden who married (1) Cecelia Leight before 1611 came on THE FORTUNE. He is listed a 
widower when he married (2) Margaret Oldham on 13 May 1611 in Leyden, Holland.