A One-Name Study for the BARNUM/BARNHAM Surname
From the New York Tribune, 3 Jan 1906: Farmer Kills Family. Murderer a Suicide. Crazy Farmer Cuts Down Wife and Two Children. Rochester, Mich., Jan. 2.--Alarmed by the deserted appearance of the farmhouse of Clarence A. Barnum, who recently came here, neighbors broke into the house to-day and found Barnum, his wife, his daughter, Louise, twenty-three years old, and his son Clinton, sixteen years old, all dead.
The wife and the son and daughter had apparently been murdered with an axe. A single-barreled shotgun lying near the body and the fact that his head was almost entirely blown off showed how Barnum had met his end. Mrs. Barnum's body was in the woodshed. It appeared that she had been able to resist the murderer for a brief time or at any rate had succeeded in eluding him long enough to reach the shed. But here she was struck down and met the same fate that had befallen her son and daughter.
The appearance of the house Indicated that the family had just finished breakfast to-day, when the insane and murderous frenzy of the father broke out.
Evidently there had been a terrific struggle as the mother and children battled for their lives. The dining room was bespattered with blood. Under the dining room table was the father's body, a gun across his knees.
Apparently he had taken the muzzle into his mouth before pulling the trigger. Three extra cartridges stood on the sideboard as if in readiness to overtake any member of the family who might succeed in escaping the murderous axe. There was blood on the handle of the axe, but the blade had been washed.
In the dining room, where the body of the father was found, was that of the daughter. The son's body was in the kitchen.
It is thought that the boy was the first attacked, that the mother was killed in the woodshed next, and that the father turned last to the daughter imprisoned in the dining room, where the disturbance had apparently begun.
Barnum sold a farm near Homer, Mich., only a few months ago. It is said that the harvest in his new home did not meet his expectations, and that he had become despondent.
This was made very evident in a letter that he wrote to a brother in Waterloo, N. Y. Two other sons and a daughter were away from home when the tragedy occurred.
William Barnum is editor of the "College News Letter," an official publication of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. John Barnum lives at Coldwater, Mich. The surviving daughter, Mary Barnum, resides at Albion, Mich.
Burial: Fairview Cemetery; Homer, Calhoun County, Michigan, USA.
A Research Guide to the Genealogy of the Barnum/Barnam/Barnham Family Worldwide
AncientFaces - Family History Photos
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