An unincorporated city, Stephensport, Kentucky is still found at the north of Breckinridge County on the Ohio River across from Indiana. The county was formed from the larger Hardin County in 1800. Bartlett Basham is found on the 1820 Census for Stephensport, Kentucky with a large family including wife, Rachel Mayberry, and 6 children. He was born in Bedford, Virginia of parents Obediah S. Basham and Cecilia Dowell in 1783. Obediah Basham served from the state of Virginia in the continental Army from 1777 to 1779. He was a Private in the Revolutionary war and is buried Lodiburg Louisville, Kentucky. Records show Obediah's father to be Bartlett Angel Basham, Sr and grandfather to be named William I. Basham Sr.
Bartlett married Rachel in Bedford on 17 Oct 1802. Their son George Dowell Basham was born soon after in 1803 while they still lived in Virginia. In 1828, George married Susan M. Campbell, daughter of John and Eleanor Campbell from Tennessee and they took up residence in Breckinridge County, Kentucky. The family is found on an 1830 Census for an unnamed portion of Breckinridge County near George's uncle Barlett Angel Basham, Jr. By 1840, George's family was up to 5 children, all under 10 years of age.
George D. Basham died before the 1850 Census was enumerated in what was called District 1 for Breckinridge County. Susan Campbell Basham is listed as a farmer at the head of a family of eleven children. Listed are daughters Barbara, 20, and Amanda 18, along with son Joseph A., 17. The middle children are daughters Elizabeth E, 13, Jerusalem A, 12, and son Thomas M., 11. The younger children are daughter Minerva, 8, son George W., 7, youngest daughter Susan, 5, sons Winston L., 3, and Milton C at 1. Elizabeth E or Eliza E married Lorenzo D. Dowell on 21 Oct 1857 and they settled in Hardinsburg. Joseph Allen married Sarah F. Dowell on April 8, 1857 and they settled in Stephensport.
By the 1860 Breckinridge Census, Susan is still widowed at 49 and Thomas at 19 is listed as farmer. Still living at the farm are Jerusha, 17, Minerva, 16, George, 15, Susan, 14, Winston, 12 and (Milton) Crawford, 10. Minerva would marry Harvey Robbins later that year and they would raise a family in Breckinridge County. Jerusha (Jerusalem) Ann would marry George Gilbert in 1865 and live in Stephensport.
By the 1870 Hardinsburg, Kentucky Census, we see the widow Susan living with her son, Winston, and keeping his house in town. Hardinsburg is the county seat of Breckinridge County and is located about 10 miles south of Stephensport. One of three incorporated areas of the county, Hardinsburg has a population just over 2300 today. Winston's sister Amanda, 36, is living with them and brother George W, 25, is listed as a school teacher. Winston would marry Nancy Norton in 1871 but the union would end in divorce.
Youngest brother Crawford married Martha J Meador in 1868 and they would raise their family in Hardinsburg. Also by 1870, the younger Susan had married farmer John B. Roberts in 1863 and they lived on a farm in Stephensport with their oldest children, Gardner, 4, and Eliza, 2.
By 1880, the elder Susan is 72 and has moved in with her daughter and son-in-law in Stephensport. By 1880 John and Susan's children are son Gardener H., 13, daughters Eliza, 11, Laley, 9, Martha 8, Mary, 8, son Frank, 5, and daughters Annie, 3, and Babe, 1. Also in the household is Winston Basham, 33, divorced and working as a laborer. A nearby neighbor is named Gardner Hawkins, so he might be the source of the name of their oldest child. In 1885 Winston would marry Melissa Bell Shelman and they would live in Union Star and raise a large family. Union Star is another unincorporated area of Breckinridge County, east of Stephensport and further from the Ohio River.
The 1900 Census for Union Star, Kentucky in Breckinridge County shows Susan Roberts as the head of her family as a widow. Living with her are son Frank, 22, daughter Annie, 20, son Edward, 18, and daughter Mirriam at 16. Susan is listed as a farmer and her two sons are both enlisted as farm laborers.
Son Gardner had married Alice in 1893 and moved to Owensboro to work as a carpenter. They had daughter Helen. Eliza Jennie married her cousin Nathaniel Tucker Basham in 1888 and they had children, Georgia, Owen and Mattie Basham. Mary Roberts married Joseph C. Bruner in 1896 and, shortly after son Garland S Bruner was born, moved to a farm in Meade County. Younger sister to Mary, Minerva "Nerva" is found in living with the Bruners in 1910 and interestingly is noted as being the Assistant Postmaster. By 1920, Joe Bruner is a General Store Merchant and Garland is a telegraph operator and the family lives on Weldon Road. In 1930, Garland has changed careers to Banking Clerk.
Martha "Mattie" Roberts married Joseph Benham and lived in Louisville, Kentucky until she died in 1942. Frank Roberts moved to Meade County after his mother's death and is on the 1910 Census as a Merchant in a General Store, living very near J.C. and Mary Bruner. He is found in the 1920 Census living as a boarder on Murray Street in Cloversport. He would marry Emily Ann Powell, the widow of his younger brother Ed in 1929. They had son, William Franklin Roberts. Sister Annie Roberts married farmer Jessie Askins and they had children Joseph D and Mary. It is not certain what happened to Minerva after 1920.
Edward had followed his brother Frank to Meade County and would become the first husband of Emily Ann Powell in 1911. In the 1910 Meade Census, fifteen-year-old Emily is living with her parents William Alfred Powell and Alice Dow and a large household. Ed Roberts was 15 years her senior and by 1920, they lived on Mill Road with their children Mary Frances, 5, and Lloyd E at 1 year and four months. Georgia Rose was born that year and Martha Elizabeth came along two years later. Ed Roberts died in 1926 at age 46 and left his 32-year-old wife and four children.