A One-Name Study for the BARNUM/BARNHAM Surname
Arthur Buel Deming was born in Cincinnati in 1838 and apparently died in New York City shortly after the turn of the century. Arthur was the son of Minor (Miner) R. Deming, the Sheriff of Hancock County, IL in the early 1840s. Arthur grew up in the town of Carthage, living as a boy in the residence portion of the jail where Mormon leader Joseph Smith was killed in 1844. Arthur's father died the year after Smith was assassinated and the young man grew up blaming the Mormons for the untimely passing of his father. Although A. B. Deming considered himself a "friend" of the Mormons his concern over their welfare took a path greatly divergent from that of his Mormon-sympathizing father. While Sheriff Deming had once sought to protect the Mormons of Hancock County under the law, his son was more interested in protecting the Saints from their own peculiar religion.
In 1884 Deming served as one of the moderators in the Edmund L. Kelley-Clark Braden debates on Mormonism, held in Kirtland, Ohio. During those debates Deming did some historical research to help out Rev. Braden and thus began a life-long quest to find the "true origin" of Mormonism. He continued his investigations and statement soliciting long after parting company with Rev. Braden and he had the good fortune to be one of the very first persons in the US to learn of the discovery of a Solomon Spaulding manuscript among the papers of Lewis L. Rice in Honolulu in 1884. The anti-Mormon researcher intensified his investigations into the Spalding authorship claims for the Book of Mormon and throughout the mid to late 1880s was working on writing a book, variously titled "Death Blow to Mormonism" and "Naked Truths About Mormonism." Although that book was never completed or published, Deming was able to make use of a portion of his collected research materials in two issues of a newspaper, also called Naked Truths About Mormonism.
Deming's newspaper was issued as a monthly production from a private press in Oakland, CA. It began with a promising January, 1888 issue but quickly fell on hard times as the editor experienced growing difficulties in soliciting enough new material and enough paying subscribers to make the venture a viable one. Skipping over the intended issues for February and March, due to publication delays, Deming tried one last time to turn his paper into a profitable business with the second and final issue of April 1888. With his finances rapidly failing, the anti-Mormon crusader abandoned his intended printing of a third number and retired from the publishing business before the end of that year. It appears that what few of his papers which did find a market were sold in northern California and on the trains of the Central Pacific railroad. When the managers of that line stopped carrying Deming's newspaper it died almost immediately.
Just before the turn of the century Deming apparently moved to New York City, a place where he had intermittently resided in earlier years when he worked as a traveling salesman.
Deming's ultimate fate remains unknown. He corresponded with an Ohioan named A. C. Williams in his later years and several of his letters to that friend are on file in the Williams papers in the Library of the Western Reserve Historical Society. Deming felt that for many years the Mormon leaders in Salt Lake City had been sending out secret agents to steal his writings and collected statements on the history of Mormonism. His preoccupation with these thoughts apparently reached the point where it became a paranoid delusion near the end of his life. It is entirely possible that A. B. Deming died as an obscure inmate in some New York asylum in the first decade of the 20th century.
A Research Guide to the Genealogy of the Barnum/Barnam/Barnham Family Worldwide
AncientFaces - Family History Photos
©1998, 2022. The format of this website and all original statements and narrative included on it are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Factual information may be freely quoted for use in private genealogical research when accompanied by a full source citation, including the date of acquisition. Click here to view the format of a citation for an Internet resource. The publication of large extracts from this site in any form requires prior written consent.
Page built by Gedpage Version 2.21 ©2009 on 02 September 2024