INTRODUCTION

SETTING AND CONTEXT

CULTURAL LANDSCAPE REPORT PURPOSE AND METHODS

Bassett Farms Conservancy, (“Bassett Farms”) includes 2,349 acres in Limestone and Falls Counties, Texas, divided into four discontiguous parcels of 1,768, 416, 149.5, and 13.6 acres. Bassett Farms is located three miles northwest of Kosse, a small town (population 450) that was laid out in 1870 when it became the temporary terminus of the newly constructed Houston and Texas Central Railroad. The focus of this Cultural Landscape Report (CLR) is the landscape associated with the Home Place, Blum Place, and Hirshfeld Farm, and their associated pastures that are located within Parcel 1. Other tracts and parcels that are owned by the Bassett Farms Conservancy will be addressed in future planning reports.

Bassett Farms was assembled by the Bassett family over a forty-five-year period between 1871 and 1915 by both Henry Bassett (18171888), who made the initial purchase of the 160-acre Home Place in 1871, and his widow, Hattie Ford (Pope) Bassett (1851-1936), who purchased the last original tract in 1915 from the heirs of Martha Green, widow of AfricanAmerican Union veteran Robert Green. In 2012, following the death of Henry Bassett’s last surviving granddaughter in 2010, the property was bequeathed to Preservation Texas for longterm preservation, conservation, and educational purposes.

As an intact cultural landscape in this region of Texas, Bassett Farms presents the opportunity to share its history with visitors from near and far, so that they may understand and appreciate the successes, trials, and tribulations of the Bassett family over three generations, from 1871, through the 1970s, as well as that of the Bassett family’s tenant farmers, and the residents of the Hopewell Freedom Colony. This landscape is known as Bassett Farms, but it is more complex than the collection of buildings that remain on site. Like all rural agricultural cultural landscapes, Bassett Farms was dynamic throughout its history. As needs arose, and economies evolved, the house at Home Place was built and modified, as were the garage, barn, and outbuildings. Some acreage was reserved for cattle grazing, while other areas were planted, primarily in cotton. As a rural agricultural landscape, it was especially vulnerable to the ebb and flow of local, regional, and national economic trends, as well as the predictability, and unpredictability, of seasonal weather patterns, drought, and temperature fluctuations.

During the same period, Hopewell Freedom Colony was the home for emancipated slaves after the Civil War, many of whom worked at Bassett Farm. Hopewell, like other Freedom Colonies across the south and areas of the mid-west, also evolved over time, as there were changing needs for families just freed from the yoke of slavery yet burdened with second class citizenship. Notably, children from Hopewell and the Bassett Home Place often played together, while their parents worked side by side in the fields or fulfilling the domestic needs in the Bassett House. This was a demanding life and recognizing that fact helps us all to comprehend what it took to secure, settle, and maintain this landscape, regardless of one’s station in life. Today, Bassett Farm and Hopewell Freedom Colony are both under the ownership – and protection – of Preservation Texas, the statewide non-profit organization dedicated to preserving these buildings and landscapes, and telling their stories together, as they were intertwined communities.

Bassett Farms is now prepared for a major cultural landscape preservation and rehabilitation planning effort. Excellent work has been underway for some time on building documentation, analysis and restoration, and new information about the structures is regularly revealed through investigation, documentation, and subsequent repairs. The Bassett Farms Cultural Landscape Report (CLR) provides the guidance and direction for the next phase of this major preservation effort.

The Bassett Farms Cultural Landscape Report provides treatment recommendations for the cultural landscape resources to address changes in the landscape since the period of significance, improve the overall condition of the cultural landscape, and recommend treatments in coordination with the goals of the Conservancy and Preservation Texas. The treatment recommendations are designed to support Conservancy objectives, provide a treatment framework to assure the long-term stewardship of the cultural landscape, and minimize the loss of critical character defining landscape features by providing sound, systematic management guidance consistent with Preservation Texas objectives.

The Bassett Farms Cultural Landscape Report:

• Broadens the understanding of extant landscape characteristics and features and their relationship to the period of significance (1871-1970s);

• Ensures that planning and design efforts reflect state and national guidelines, including The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties with Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes; and

• Develops a series of plans and graphic images depicting the landscape as it developed over time, with a focus on the historic period, that will serve programmatic, planning and design efforts and enhance the Conservancy’s interpretation and educational aspirations and materials into the future.

The CLR is organized in three sections.

• Section One of the Cultural Landscape Report includes a comprehensive site history.

• Section Two includes documentation of existing conditions, and a summary of analysis and evaluation of cultural landscape features.

• Section Three provides treatment recommendations for preservation and rehabilitation of significant resources in coordination with Preservation Texas objectives, potential operations, landscape maintenance needs, and a range of site access opportunities. It also considers potential uses for public access to Bassett Farms, including, but not limited to, harvest fairs, summer educational programs, concerts, and other events.

The CLR cultural landscape documentation, analysis and treatment recommendations are based on well-established standards of the National Park Service. These standards include thirteen cultural landscape characteristics and their associated features, and the ways in which they interact, with the intent of gaining and providing a comprehensive understanding of the cultural landscape as it is today, from its largest characteristic (overall spatial organization) to its most intimate features (small scale features.)

The CLR also engages established knowledge about natural systems, such as topography, soils, native and invasive plant species, wildlife, and hydrological systems. Including information about the natural systems and features analysis is essential to gaining a comprehensive understanding of how and why the cultural landscape developed as it did, as is evident in the historical description, below.

Of the thirteen cultural landscape characteristics established by the NPS, nine are included in the CLR to deepen our understanding of this place. They are:

• natural systems: processes and features in nature influencing historical development or use

• spatial organization: the historical, threedimensional arrangements of physical form

• land use: historical activities that influenced development or modification

• buildings and structures: historical constructed forms and edifices

• views and vistas: historical range of vision, both broad and discrete

• vegetation: patterns of human-influence plants, both native and introduced.

• circulation: historical systems for human movement

• constructed water features: historical constructed form for water retention and conveyance

• small scale features: discrete historical elements that provide detail and diversity