[BARNUM 01-27-01.GED] Hannah Rebecca Bennet (Mrs. Edward Seth Barnum) Mrs. Edward Seth Barnum passed away peacefully at the home of her son, Marion on the home farm in Barnum Wisconsin on April 19, 1941. Hannah was born in New York State on November 9, 1837 and as a child came with her parents to Boone County, Illinois. On July 9, 1857 she married Edward in Jo Davis County and they came to Wisconsin by boat up the Mississippi River to Lynxville, where they settled in Haney Valley in Crawford County. Marion Richard Barnum and Mrs Sabra Haskins were at her bedside until her death. Frank, her youngest son, died in 1888 in California and Mrs Ella Scoville, her first child, died in 1905 in Seneca, Wisconsin. Funeral services were held at the Haney Valley Church and burial took place in the Haney Valley Cemetery. They had four children, Ella Sarah Barnum (Oldest) Sabra Barnum, Marion R. Barnum and Frank G. Barnum.
E. S. Barnum knew Hannah's parents in Boone County, Illinois. Apparently he was quite taken with her as a young girl and promised to return and marry her when she was old enough. He went back to fetch his bride from Illinois in 1857, and brought her by flatboat and oxen pulled wagons to his new homestead in the Town of Haney in Crawford County. She was very lonely and missed the family she had left behind. Her granddaughter said she often wondered if the birds she listened to in Haney Valley would travel to Illinois on their way south and sing to her family. This from an interview with her granddaughter, Wilma (Barnum) McCormick. Burial: 1914, Haney Valley Cemetery, Crawford County, Wisconsin. Residence: 1857, Boon County, Illinois.