unemployed cowboy rode into the Bassett ranchyard in about 1883 looking for a meal and a bunkhouse with an empty bed. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, slim-waisted, dark-skinned black man named Isom Dart. When Elizabeth asked him to stay on, she could not have realized that this new cowhand was to become a mainstay in her life and in the lives of her children and grandchildren.
Isom had come up from Texas on a trail drive of around six thousand head of cattle destined for the Middlesex ranch. His trail boss was his boyhood friend, Madison M. “Matt” Rash, who had been born near Acton in Hood County, Texas, on January 4, 1865. Matt was about eighteen years old at the time he left Texas, more than old enough to be a trail boss in those times when the Texas cattlemen depended consistently on teenagers to drive their cattle north. Crawford MacKnight describes Isom and Matt as “boyhood friends”; since Isom was ten years older than Matt (he was born in 1855) possibly Isom worked near Matt’s boyhood home or even for his family.
Isom’s powerful physique and superior coordination made him an all-around cowhand of exceptional competence. It was his personal qualities, however, that endeared him to three generations of Bassetts. He had natural dignity and integrity, and although the Bassetts would not completely erase the line between the races, they accorded him concern, respect, and a friendship that was close to love. Crawford remembered him as almost a member of the family, someone who shared their life more intimately than an ordinary cowhand would have done, and who “put a good meal on the table when it was his turn,” although he was not hired as a cook and was too valuable on the range to be kept in the kitchen.
Isom was a loner who went infrequently into Rock Springs and mingled very little there, even with members of his own race. He seemed to prefer life back at Brown’s Park, where he could play with the children and entertain them with his fiddle or the mouthharp on which he was a master. He loved to work with rawhide—Crawford called him a “rawhide artist”—and fashioned quirts and lariats of carefully cut strips of cowhide which he blended into articles of heirloom quality.
His real love was horseflesh, dating perhaps from the time in his early youth when he was stableboy for a governor of Texas. All the time he was with the Bassetts he had his own herd of cattle, which he augmented by catching the wild broncs so plentiful in those days, breaking them to saddle and then trading them to the surrounding ranchers for cows. A measure of the man can be taken by the fact that when he was breaking a bronc he took off his spurs and hung them on the corral fence. To Isom, it was cruel to use spurs on a wild creature, and he had the strength and stamina to break a bronc without them.
Isom lived on with the Bassetts, semiautonomous, with his own herd and his own ways of bringing in money. He ate his meals in the main house along with the other cowboys, played with the children, and pursued his own interests in his quiet, dignified, independent way, gaining admiration and respect from the ranchers in the valley.
In the meantime, his trail boss, Matt Rash, had stayed on at Middlesex after delivering the Texas cattle. Soon Matt transferred to Tom Kinney’s Circle K ranch just west of the Middlesex ranches and worked for Tom as a foreman. But Middlesex, which had been thwarted by the Brown’s Park ranchers’ concerted opposition when it tried to expand to the east, turned to the west, where Tom Kinney ranged his cows. Here the expansion was more successful. Tom was forced to sell out his cattle and turn to sheep-raising. Matt, a self-respecting cattleman, parted company with Tom at that point, but Tom did not hold this against Matt, and even helped him financially until he could get his own credit at the bank. Matt came on over to the Park driving a herd of his own, mostly young heifers he had got from Tom Kinney in their final settling up.
Although Matt stayed in the Bassett bunkhouse when he first entered the Park, he soon built himself a cabin a couple of miles west of the Bassett home and became independent. Friendship grew between the Bassetts and him, and the relationship deepened into another “family” association as time went on. Matt was from a good Texas family—his mother was a sister of Davy Crockett, it is said—and he spoke the same language as the Bassetts. Although Elizabeth was cordial to her neighbors, she had little in common with many of them and had developed no intimate friends. It was a pleasure to both Herb and her to have the company of this bright, aggressive young man.
Not too long after the arrival of Matt and Isom, a teenager joined them at the Bassett ranch: Jim McKnight, a rangy, six-foot Scotsman with chiseled features and blue eyes that turned green when he was angry. Jim was the namesake of a father whose own family had disowned him when he left the Catholic faith to become a Mormon. Eventually the elder McKnight became involved in so severe a doctrinal argument with the church elders that he was forced to leave Utah. He went on to the state of Washington, where he edited a newspaper, and never returned to Utah. His devoutly Mormon wife Mary stayed on at the family farm in the Salt Lake area, continuing to raise her children in the ways of righteousness.
Young Jim became disillusioned with Mormonism as his father had, and in 1881, when he was only twelve years old, he ran away to Rock Springs. Luckily for Jim, he captured the interest of a wealthy rancher, an immigrant from Pennsylvania named Butterworth. Jim worked on Butterworth’s ranch during his early teens, and his employer saw to it that he got an education and stayed out of trouble. When Jim felt himself grown he headed for Brown’s Park to begin ranching for himself, and ended up at the Bassett ranch as another cowboy ambitious to start his own personal herd of cattle.
Jim joined Matt Rash, Isom Dart and Elizabeth in an informal but closely cooperative working relationship in which they handled their various herds almost as one. When J. S. Hoy spoke of “the Bassett gang,” he was referring to these three men, and he regarded Matt Rash as the senior member. It is interesting to note, however, that for all of Hoy’s disapproval of Rash, and for all his eagerness to file complaints against his neighbors, no charge was ever brought against Rash, nor against Elizabeth or Jim McKnight for that matter. Isom was not as lucky, and was accused at least twice.
John Rolfe Burroughs tells of a time when Deputy Sheriff Philbrick came out from Rock Springs to arrest Isom on J. S. Hoy’s complaint of “larceny of livestock.” On the way back to Rock Springs there was an accident; the horses, the buckboard, the deputy and his prisoner all tumbled into a deep draw, leaving Philbrick with smashed ribs and several bad cuts. Isom, unhurt, got the team back on the road, took Philbrick to the hospital at Rock Springs, delivered the horses to the livery stable, then walked over to the jail and turned himself in. The grateful Philbrick testified at Isom’s trial, pointing out that such merciful treatment and willingness to accept arrest were not the actions of a guilty man. The jury found Isom innocent of the charges.
Burroughs tells of a more serious incident in 1890, when three of the Bassett cowhands—Angus McDougal, Jack Fitch and Isom Dart—were accused of burning down Harry Hoy’s barn. Angus and Isom were further accused of altering the brands on three horses belonging to another brother, A. A. Hoy. Angus McDougal was sentenced to five years in the Colorado state penitentiary, although Tom Davenport, Elizabeth and young Sam Bassett were subpoenaed to testify for the defense. Charges against Fitch were dropped. Burroughs states that Isom jumped jail (perhaps with the approval of his jailers?) and was never brought to trial. If so, it is possible that the authorities had no more of a case against him than they had against Fitch, since they did not bother making another trip to the Park to bring him in. Considering his reputation and his behavior with Deputy Sheriff Philbrick, it seems that they could have dropped him a postcard and he would have come to trial of his own accord.
If Elizabeth’s helpers can be considered a “gang,” then there was one other member, an important one. Even before Elizabeth acquired her first cowhand, little Josie had been a working member of the family. As each baby arrived and as the workload on Elizabeth grew heavier, Josie took over an increasing share of the care of the smaller children and the household tasks. She graduated from the work/play of “helping” Elizabeth pat out the biscuit dough with fingers still chubby with baby fat to making those biscuits herself. The first child, Josie accepted her responsibilities as a matter of course, and her lifelong generosity and solicitude for others (along with her habit of command) became as natural as breathing.
Josie has been called “another Elizabeth.” She must have been a charming little girl. Her curly hair was the color of a copper penny; her fair skin was liberally sprinkled