"Grizzly" Adams' Death
In an 1855 grizzly attack in the Sierras of California, John suffered head and neck injuries. His scalp was dislodged and he had an impression about the size of a silver dollar above his forehead. The wounds healed but the skull indentation remained. He made pets of several grizzlies and often wrestled with them while training them and in exhibitions. His most delinquent grizzly, named General Fremont (for John C. Fremont), during a playful wrestling match, struck Adams in the head, cracking open the previous injury like an eggshell. The wound healed somewhat, only to be reopened by the "General," several times, eventually leaving his brain tissue exposed.
The injury was evidently further aggravated while Adams was on tour with the circus in New England in the summer of 1860, when a monkey that Adams was attempting to train, bit into the open wound. After more than four months performing with his California Menagerie, complications from the wound eventually led to Adams' inability to continue on with the show. After completing his contract with Barnum, he retired to Neponset, Massachusetts, where he died of his illness (possibly meningitis) just five days after arriving at the home of his wife and daughter. Upon hearing of Adams' death, Barnum was deeply grieved.
John "Grizzly" Adams was buried in the Bay Path Cemetery, Charlton, Massachusetts. It is said that P.T. Barnum commissioned the creation of his tombstone. Also buried there nearby are his mother, father, a sister, his wife, his son and one of his two daughters.
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