P.T. Barnum's will paid a grandson to take the Barnum name; sources give the sum as $25,000 or a share of the estate

P.T. Barnum died at home in Bridgeport on 7 April 1891, aged 80. His first wife Charity died in 1873 and he married Nancy Fish in 1874. He had no sons. His daughter Pauline's eldest son, Clinton Seeley, was asked to add Barnum to his name at 21. Barnum's will rewarded the change. One source puts the bequest at $25,000^†, another at that sum plus a yearly 3 percent of his enterprises^†, and a letter of about 1888 gives him a one-ninth interest in the estate^†. Britannica says only that a sizable bequest depended on using the name. Clinton Barnum Seeley became president of the Bridgeport Trust Company, served 31 years on the city park board, and died on 17 March 1958 aged 90. In 1936 he gave Bridgeport about 36 acres at Seaside and Iranistan avenues in memory of his grandfather. The circus, merged with James Bailey in 1888, was sold to the Ringling brothers in 1907 for $400,000. The will itself is held by the Connecticut State Library as "Will & Codicils of Phineas Taylor Barnum," and its terms were not read for this entry.