Samuel Bass

Samuel Bass (1807–1853) was a white Canadian abolitionist who helped Solomon Northup, author of Twelve Years a Slave, attain his freedom. Northup was a free black man from New York who was kidnapped and forced into slavery in the Deep South. At risk of injury and conviction in default of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Bass mailed letters to friends of Northup that initiated a series of events to save him. Canada Bass was born in August 1807 in Augusta Township, Upper Canada (now Ontario), where he was raised. His parents were John and Hannah Lakins Bass, who had twelve children. John had come to Canada with his mother and siblings in the late 1770s after the death of his father. His grandparents, Adonijah and Lydia Draper Bass, were United Empire Loyalists who lived in Walloomsac, New York, during the American Revolutionary War. Samuel Bass married Catharine Lydia Lane (or Lydia Catlin Lane), and they settled in rural Edwardsburgh Township. They built a house and had four daughters, Catherine, Hannah, Martha Maria, and Zeruah. He did not have a great relationship with his wife. He said that she had a temper so severe that it would have been difficult for any man to live with her. Louisiana Bass left Canada around 1840 for the United States, where he had relatives. He is known to have lived in Louisiana, and he owned land in Illinois.