1017 West Trinity Avenue
Durham, NC, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Bassett House (Faculty Avenue Houses TR)

Statement of Significance:

With the exception of the Pegram House, with its longtime resident Professor Pegram, in its use the Bassett House is a typical Faculty Ave. dwelling which saw occupation by several generations of faculty members. A photograph in the Duke Archives collection has this notation on the rear:
Faculty House, Trinity Park occupied by:
Professor J. L. Armstrong
Merritt
Bassett
Glasson
Parker
Webb
The original occupant of this house located 1017 W. Trinity Ave. was Professor John Spencer Bassett. His son Richard B. Bassett supervised the construction of this and the other faculty houses. (It is interesting to note that John Spencer Bassett's grandfather and father, Richard Bassett and Richard Baxter Bassett, located in Williamsburg were contractors and architects. Just prior to the Civil War, Richard Baxter Bassett moved to Eastern North Carolina where he was prominent in the construction enterprises of the region.) Richard B. Bassett's son, Richard H. Bassett of Milton, Mass. "recalls the original building as an unassuming dwelling and said that university benefactor Washington Duke 'who was fond of my father had the U-shaped front porch added to embellish the forlorn little cottage. It is thought that the porches were added soon after the cottage was built. The Pegram House porch was probably added at the same time and a comparison of the Pegram House pre and post porch photographs suggest by the relative growth of the foundation plantings that it may have been added within three or four years.

A subsequent occupant of the Bassett House, John M. Webb recalls his childhood there as a son in the family of Albert M. Webb, head of the Romance Languages Department at Trinity. He said it was his understanding that the house stood east of a building called the "Woodland Stage" on what is now East Campus of Duke University. He said the house was moved from that location to its present spot-on Trinity Ave. at the time Watts St. was paved, he believes during World War I. (N.B.: Durham Street Engineering Department reports this occurred early, 1918.) He said his father supervised the work with the aid of a young contractor whose name he does not remember.

The house, according to Webb, was the first house on the west end of Trinity Ave. and it was given to his father by the college. Webb said the sleeping porch and study were added in the 1920's and the garage built for the family's Model A Ford. The downstairs bath, he added was added in the 1950's. "The flagstone walk in the back- yard," he said, "was my handiwork... it may be my most enduring monument.

John Spencer Basset was born September 10, 1867 at Tarboro, North Carolina the second child of Richard Baxter Bassett and Mary Jane (Wilson) Bassett. After the Civil War the family moved to Goldsboro where John Spencer received his early schooling. He entered Trinity College in 1886 and graduated, 1888. After teaching two years in the Durham Graded School, he returned to Trinity as an instructor and in February 1890 he organized the 9019, Trinity's first scholarship society. This organization later established the influential "South Atlantic Quarterly." He left Trinity to earn his Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University in 1894.

He returned to the new Trinity College, Durham as a history professor. historical section of the college library was small, but Bassett persuaded the members of a local history club and others to contribute rare books, pamphlets, and manuscripts. . .the beginning of an excellent collection of Southern Americana. " He also established the first publication of the College strictly devoted to scholarship, "The Historical Papers of the Trinity College Historical Society." His own published works on history are prolific.

A conscientious scholar, Bassett generally shunned controversy; however, in 1903, he became embroiled in what is termed the "Bassett Affair," which was to become a landmark case for academic freedom.