BASSA COVE
Commander Marsten, of the U.S. Navy, in a report made of a visit to the
colony of Liberia, makes the following interesting statements relative to
Bassa Cove, where our most interesting mission stations are located: —
The country of Grand Bassa, of which Bassa Cove,
although not the most populous, is the county town, is principally
inhabited by emigrants from Virginia and Maryland, and a few
from South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, with a
very small number from New York and Connecticut. The town of
Bassa Cove lies on the point formed by the junction of the rivers
St. Johns and Benson: and almost immediately opposite, at the
union of the St. Johns and Mechlin rivers, is situated the town of
Edina, and further up the St. Johns, is the town of Bexley.
Bassa Cove contains two hundred and sixty inhabitants;
Edina, four hundred and thirty; and Bexley, three hundred and
eighty; about one-fifth of whom in each town are natives, the
remainder are emigrants from the United States.
All these places are regularly laid out into streets running at
right angles, some of which are sixty, and some eighty feet in
width; and the squares are three hundred feet, allowing each
building lot to be sixty feet by a depth of one hundred and fifty.
The buildings are constructed chiefly of wood, which in my
opinion is bad policy, as the constant interchange of wet and dry
seasons, causes them to rot; and added to this, the myriads of
insects which this climate supplies, makes them soon go to decay.
This could be avoided by substituting stone or brick; the latter
article being now made in various parts of the Republic; but that
which I should recommend in place of either of the above articles,
is iron.
It gave me much pleasure to learn from all with whom I
have conversed, that the moral and religious condition of this part
of the Liberian Republic is most cheering; there being but little
vice, while a truly gratifying religious character is very apparent.
BASSA Cove contains two churches, one belonging to the
Baptists, the other to the Methodists. EDINA has three churches,
Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian; and BEXLEY also has two
churches, belonging to the two first denominations. Attached to
each of these churches is a flourishing Sunday school, attended by
