Honoring Veterans through the Owego American Legion

It was 73 years ago on April 1, 1946 that American Legion Post 401 gained a new home. On that very day, Robert Van Rensselaer Bassett sold the Bassett family home of 23 years to the Owego Servicemen’s Memorial Home, Inc. for one dollar to provide a proper place for World War Two returning servicemen to stay and gather for social activities. 

Mr. Bassett had much to celebrate that day as the War had ended victoriously in 1945 and as chairman of the Tioga County Selective Service Board since its creation in 1940, he had witnessed hundreds of Owego men going to War and helped them and their families deal with the challenges and difficult circumstances impacting soldiers and their loved ones. He was especially grateful that day as his own son, Robert Van Rensselaer Bassett, Jr., had survived three and a half years in a Japanese prison camp as Owego’s longest prisoner of war and had come home at the end of August 1945 to an overjoyed wife, son and parents in Owego. 

What a fitting way to memorialize the victory in World War Two and the return of Owego’s servicemen by turning the historic family home at 263 Front St. into a permanent veterans home. This facility was one of Owego’s remarkable properties owned by Owego’s first lawyer Eleazer Dana in the early 1800’s and later by businessman Thomas Chatfield who built a beautiful house on the property during the Civil War. 

It was this historic house that the Bassett and Patton families lived in beginning in 1922 through the Depression years until it was sold on April 1, 1946. Various factors shaped the future home of Post 401 as a trust fund of $15,000 was established to help make needed modifications to the structure after it was damaged by fire, and to realize the visionary new design for the home which stands proudly today on Front Street. 

Recently, Robert Clarke Bassett met with Commander Bonnie Hand of American Legion Post 401 at the Lake Street office of the Charles H. Bassett Youth Foundation to share the story of the Bassett family’s important historic connection to the current Post 401 headquarters at 263 Front St., and to make a financial contribution in honor of his grandfather and uncle’s service to the country, the American Legion’s 100th anniversary, and the 63rd anniversary of the sale of the property to create a lasting home for Owego’s American Legion. 

With continued community support and excellent leadership, the next hundred years of the American Legion’s service in Owego is well under way.