There’s a likely chance that most who enter the doors of the Dr. John Silas Bass North Community Building have never heard of the trials and tribulations the building’s namesake endured more than 150 years ago.
A few might have known of Dr. Bass’s influence, not only in Iola, but in the medical community as one of the first African-American physicians in United States history.
And as his great-grandson, Dr. Elliott Bass, pointed out last week, John Silas Bass became one of Iola’s earliest citizen activists, pressuring city fathers to give blacks access to city services.
But his formative years, first as an escaped slave then as a fugitive with his family after the Civil War, have largely remain absent from local history books.
A new sign that adorns the community building at 505 N. Buckeye St. rectifies some of that.
The sign, paid for and designed by the Bass family and installed by Iola city crews, features a brief biography of Bass, which Elliott hopes will spark an even greater desire for Iolans to learn about his great-grandfather.
JOHN SILAS BASS was born into slavery in 1850, on a plantation in Elkton, Tenn.
The slaveholder died when John was around 10, and just old enough to begin working.
Because Tennessee laws at the time considered slaves property, he and the others were sold to another slaveholder. He worked for a year as a nurse maid, then was sold again to a slaveholder, best described as “white trash,” Elliott said.
“They beat him every night,” Elliott said.
Knowing he could not endure such a life, the youth knew he must escape.
John saw his opportunity when he was sent to the slaveholder’s barn to fetch a tallow light, a small lantern fueled from animal fat the slaves would use to light their cabins at night. (The animal fat often would be used to grease up whips, Elliott noted.)
“He decided, ‘I’d rather die than take another beating,” Elliott said. “So he got on their horse and took out.”
Slaves that had heard of John’s plight helped hide him for the next couple of months, at which point his slaveholder’s lease was to expire. “Then he could no longer claim him,” Elliott noted.
Bass hooked up with a group of slaves and soon found himself serving as a page boy for the Confederate Army until that particular outfit was overrun by Union generals William Sherman and Grenville Dodge.
