Was your Barnum connected, or associated with the Ringling Bros Barnum and Bailey Circus... Perhaps a gypsy? I am tracing the possibility that there were people of color passing themselves off as NA for Indian land benefits.... --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Harold Miller <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 00:29:53 +0000 Subject: Canadian river - route to AR? Message-ID: <[email protected]> This maybe is more western trails.....but does anyone have info on the Canadian River which runs thru New Mexico, Texas panhandle, OK.....looks like it ends close to the Arkansas River. Say in 1860.....would there be any way to trace a Native American family along this river? Where there any there? I know this sounds strange. We have our great-grandfather who was at least part Indian just showing up in NW Arkansas around 1860, 1861. Now most men are joining the army then but he somehow manages to stay out. (maybe he had already deserted from someplace else). He marrys and begins his family. Census records say he could not read or write. The marriage record says Moses Branum. 1870 census has Banham, 1880 census Bannam, 1900 census Barnum. It was pronounced by everyone as Barnum and his children spelled it Barnum. Moses was said to have talked funny - a very heavy accent of some kind. Now he said at different times that he was from Canada, MO, KS. Apparently he did not want anyone to really know where he had come from. He is supposed to have gotten to NW Arkansas by river on a raft - always assumed the Mississippi River. Now I have this wild thought that maybe he was from someplace on the Canadian River. Could he have gotten to NW Arkansas by using that river? Thanks Mary [email protected]