Family:William Bassett and Elizabeth Unknown (1)

The Identity of the First Wife of William Bassett of Plymouth, Duxbury and Bridgewater

"In the allotment of cattle in 1627, we find mention of a wife, Elizabeth, and two children William and Elizabeth. It has been said that he married an Elizabeth Tilden. but there seems to have been no Elizabeth Tilden in the colony at the time, so far as can be proved. At present we must insist that the maiden name of Elizabeth Bassett remains undiscovered. Whoever she may have been, she died previously to her husband; for two wills, one by Timothy Hatherly in 1664 and a second by William Bassett himself, made in 1667, taken with the inventory of his property, show that a wife Mary Bassett, outlived William."^[2]

Timothy Hatherly was the second husband of Lydia Tilden, widow of Nathaniel Tilden. In his will of 1664, he called the wife of William Bassett a daughter of his present wife. But William Bassett was married to Mary at that time, so apparently his wife at the time was Mary (Tilden) Lapham, widow of Thomas Lapham who d. by 1651. Also, there is no record of an Elizabeth in the family of Nathaniel and Lydia Tilden, and her birth abt. 1603 (according to this page) is 3 or 4 years before their marriage. So it is not likely that William Bassett's early wife was Elizabeth Tilden, and further, it is almost impossible that she was a daughter of Nathaniel and Lydia Tilden. --Jrich 00:53, 9 July 2009 (EDT)

Anderson's Great Migration sketch of Nathaniel Tilden confirms (1) that Lydia (Huckstep) Tilden married Timothy Hatherly; (2) William Bassett's second wife was Mary (Tilden) (Lapham) Bassett; and (3) that Nathaniel and Lydia (Huckstep) Tilden did not have a daughter named Elizabeth.--jaques1724 14:56, 6 April 2012 (EDT)

1. ↑ William Bassett, in Anderson, Robert Charles. The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony 1620-1633. (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2004)
   50.

   (William Bassett married (1) by 1623 (and probably by 1621) Elizabeth _____, probably also a passenger on the Fortune in 1621.

2. ↑ Lowell, Daniel Ozro Smith. A Munsey-Hopkins genealogy: being the ancestry of Andrew Chancey Munsey and Mary Jane Merritt Hopkins, the parents of Frank A. Munsey, his brother and sisters. (Boston, MA: (Privately published), 1920)
   64.
3.   Banks, Charles Edwards. The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers: Who Came to Plymouth on the 'Mayflower' in 1620, the 'Fortune' in 1621, and the 'Anne' and the 'Little James'. (New York: Grafton Press, 1929)
   p. 105.