Henry Bason (1806-1858) was an Alamance County builder and farmer. When Alamance County was formed from Orange, he contracted along with Captain John Trollinger, who had a brickyard and a farm and probably supplied the bricks, to erect the brick Alamance County Jail (1849) in the new county seat of Graham. Eli Denny, another local builder, constructed Alamance County’s first courthouse at about the same time. Representative of many rural artisans who combined farming with building trades, Bason is also credited by tradition with building the brick W. J. Nicks Store (ca. 1850) facing the courthouse square. He probably built other structures as well.

Both Henry Bason and John Trollinger were members of families long established in the part of Orange County that became Alamance County. Henry was the son of Joseph Bason and Barbara Foust, early settlers in the area. Bason’s wife, Mary Trollinger (1814-1867), whom he married in 1832, was a kinswoman of Trollinger. In 1850 Henry Bason was listed in the United States Census as a farmer who owned thirteen slaves and $2,100 worth of real estate. He died in 1858 and was buried at the venerable Haw River Presbyterian Church cemetery. It is possible that he had a role in building the brick, Greek Revival style Haw River Presbyterian Church, but this has not been ascertained.

• Carl R. Lounsbury, Alamance County Architectural Heritage (1980).
• “Occasional Diary of Edwin Michael Holt,” 1844-1854, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.