Andrew Doss is working to preserve the history of Bassett—both the town and the company that shares its name—and to share it with others.
Doss manages the Facebook group, Bassett – Looking Back. Moving Forward, where members can find historic photos and information about the town. He also helps preserve the company’s legacy as part of Bassett Furniture.
“I am unofficially the company historian,” said Doss, who was inspired to start after discovering the location of archived Bassett Pioneer newsletters. The newsletters, which celebrated employees and were produced in high print quality, held personal significance for Doss, a fourth-generation Bassett Furniture employee. He wanted to find photos of his family.
Community members soon began contributing their own copies.
“Ever since I’ve been doing it, people started donating, and I have tons of these things,” Doss said.
A coworker later suggested creating a digital archive, and Doss began compiling the material.
“I ended up scanning 20 years’ worth of these newsletters off and on, for four years.”
The Facebook group started as a side project.
“I honestly only figured maybe 100, 200 people would be interested. I had no idea of the kind of interest. At the time, it didn’t make any sense to me,” he said.
Today, the group has nearly 12,000 members.
Doss soon realized how deeply Bassett Furniture’s history was tied to the region, drawing interest from descendants of employees and others with family connections to the area.
“You have to think how many people were employed back from 1902, let’s just grab a random number, to 1980.”
Even people who never lived in Bassett have shown interest.
“Some of them didn’t even live in Bassett. They wanted to learn more about this place where their great grandpa lived and died,” he said.
Doss earns no money from the group and says he is driven by a passion for history.
“I was already into history long before Bassett history.”
His interest was sparked by his wife’s involvement in family genealogy.
“She said you should look up your family sometime. I said my family never did anything. Then I realized that everybody” thinks that way. “When you start doing genealogy, you realize that you have somebody who did something pretty significant in your family,” he said.
Through his research, Doss discovered that his fourth great-grandfather served in the War of 1812.
“I didn’t know anything about the War of 1812, so I learned about it.”
This led him to join the War of 1812 Society and later the Sons of the American Revolution.
“I’ve been really active in Sons of American Revolution ever since.”
Doss is serving his first cumulative term as president of the group and has been its registrar since 2009, often conducting genealogical research on behalf of applicants.
“I spend not only a lot of time on my own family research, but on other people’s family research as well.”
As Doss began sharing company history with Bassett Furniture’s leadership, he received more inquiries.
“It made me sad when I first started here because I thought there wasn’t much history left at the company.”
Using old newspapers and online archives, he pieced together historical information. His efforts expanded when a former bank across from Bassett Furniture contacted him after finding documents from 1982, when the company sold the building.
Among the materials were aerial views of the plants, sales representative data, and company profiles.
“It’s a cool thing for me to collect.”
This discovery marked his first foray into locating and preserving documents. His growing collection now includes items from J.D. Bassett’s desk. Bassett founded the Bassett Furniture Industries. His competitive spirit is credited with helping “spawn numerous other furniture manufacturing companies, among them Stanley, Vaughan, and Vaughan-Bassett, Hooker, United Furniture, Galax Mirror and Bassett Mirror, to whom he contributed manufacturing’ know-how and Initial capital,” according to homefurnishingshalloffame.com.
“They gave me access to the vault and things in annex storage.”
Some items were brittle, requiring careful restoration. Doss worked to scan and reassemble documents before storing them in protective sleeves.
“As years went by, more and more things came to my hands and helped me become the source for Bassett information as well,” he said.
Doss has also played a role in clarifying misinformation and hopes to one day see Bassett’s history displayed for public viewing. He encourages others to join the Facebook group and share personal discoveries.
Doss co-manages a historical YouTube channel with friend and fellow group administrator Jarred Marlowe. The channel, “Doss-Marlowe: History in Sight,” features in-depth content about the history of Bassett and the surrounding area. Subscribers to the channel have access to more in-depth information about the history of Bassett and the surrounding area.
