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William M. Barnum

Lawyer

Centurion, 1895–1926

Full Name William Milo Barnum

Born 25 January 1856 in Salisbury, Connecticut

Died 5 October 1926 in New York (Manhattan), New York

Buried Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York

Proposed by George M. Tuttle and Thomas Thacher

Elected 2 March 1895 at age thirty-nine

Seconder of:

Century Memorial

William Milo Barnum seldom came to the Century; he divided his evenings between his family and his Yale associations and Yale friends, and they were numerous. Yale was his first love; then shooting, fishing and golf. He owned a stretch of salmon fishery on the Restigouche, and was himself a highly expert trout and salmon fisherman. He was fond of reading, and his own humor was subtle and delightful. His friends describe him as a perfect presiding officer, but he confined display of that rare gift mostly to Yale gatherings. He had a nimble and ready pen, but this, too, he restricted to correspondence with his intimates. A distinguished lawyer in the old Simpson, Thacher & Barnum firm (all of them Centurions), he might also by inheritance have had a leaning towards politics, for his father was the well known Senator Barnum from Connecticut of the Hayes-Tilden period. But politics never attracted our Centurion.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1927 Century Association Yearbook