Joseph Thomas Barnum was born in 1832 in New York state, the son of Truman Barnum and Harriet Rich. Although he is said to have been a cousin of P.T. Barnum, the famous showman (Phineas was the son of Philo, while Joseph Thomas was the son of Truman), so far no proof has been found that Philo and Truman were brothers.
The Barnums came to Arizona in 1864 and settled first in
Prescott, where Joseph Thomas met and married Jeanette Jane “Jenettie” Osborn,
daughter of John P. Osborn and Perlina Swetnam, on 10 May 1865. He was 33, almost 17 years older than his
teenaged bride.
When Barnum, who usually went by his middle name of Thomas,
moved his family to the Salt River Valley in 1868, his wife was one of only
four Anglo women in the rough settlement.
Barnum was quick to see the Valley's potential and went into partnership
with J. W. Swilling in digging irrigation ditches. He was also one of the signers of the
original Salt River Valley Town Association pact on 20 October 1870.
When Maricopa County was created in 1871 from Yavapai County, it became necessary to elect county officials for the first time. After one candidate for sheriff, a man named Chenoweth, shot and killed another candidate, J. Favorite, in a gunfight, Barnum became the front runner for the office. He was elected and served from May until August, 1871.
Besides enforcing the law, Barnum's duties included developing a tax roll and collecting taxes for the new county. He also had to take convicted felons to the state prison in Yuma and transport the insane to the nearest mental hospital which was in California. Being out of town so often made it difficult for Barnum to attend to the running of his ranch, so he resigned as sheriff in August of 1871. The federal census of 1880 lists his occupation as ‘saloonkeeper’.
Barnum’s ranch eventually prospered but, between 1873 and 1884, he and his wife mourned the loss of five of their thirteen children.
As he had demonstrated earlier in digging irrigation canals, Barnum was willing to invest in the future. In 1901, he was among the signers of the articles of incorporation for the Phoenix Independent Telephone Company. Like many other Arizona pioneers, he also had mining interests and became a partner in the Gold Coin Mining Company in 1901 [8].
Barnum died on 26 January 1909 at the age of 77 [9]. Although his death certificate says he was buried in 'the Catholic Cemetery', it is believed that he was actually buried in the Catholic section of Loosley Cemetery, next to his five little sons. The rest of the Barnum family is buried about a mile away in Forest Lawn Cemetery [10].
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