BARNHART, Elizabeth - Fountain County INGenWeb Project

  A young woman named Elizabeth Barnhart, an idiot inmate of the County Poor House, aged about thirty five years, was burned to death Saturday morning about 5 o’clock. She had been an inmate four years. During the day, these idiotic people are allowed to wander about the premises, and this poor unfortunate, on the occasion alluded to, went too near the oven in which bread was being baked, and her clothing caught fire. The clothing being woolen did not burn very freely; but she inhaled the smoke and hot air, which caused her death in a very short time. Her body was not very badly burned, and death would not have resulted had she not inhaled the smoke. She gave no alarm, and her clothing had burned some time before her condition was discovered. Her parents were sent for and the remains interred in the cemetery on Poor Farm grounds. -s

Lafayette Journal