The family name of Burnham is exclusively English-Scotch in its origin. A "burn" is the Scottish for a small stream or brook, and the prefix or suffix "burn" in the names of English and Scotch towns, implies that the latter are near a stream, as Blackburn, Bannockburn etc. "Ham is the Anglo-Saxon for a house, a home, a village. It is a common element in the names of English towns and villages: as Brockingham, Durham, Nottingham, Hamlet, Burnham and so on. "Burnham simply means, therefore, "a village by a brook", or "a home by the stream". As early as the 9th century at least, there were no less than eight villages in the county of Norfolk, England, known by the name of Burnham (Villages or hamlets by the stream). These villages were known as Burnham-Deepdale, Burnham-Westgate, Burnham-Norton, Burnham-Ulph, Burnham-Broom, Burnham-Overy, Burnham-Sutton and Burnham-Thorpe.
So when Walter Le Veutre came to England at the Conquest in 1066, with William of Normandy, in the train of his cousin German, Earl Warren, he was made Lord of the Saxon villages of Burnham, County of Norfolk, at the survey of 1080, and of many other manors. From this manor he took the surname of De Burnham and became the ancestor of the family name.
The name Burnham is sometimes spelled Bernham, Burnam, Barnham, Beornhom, Byrnhom, etc. Our name therefore, is Anglo-Saxon, But Walter Le Veutre, the first man who adopted the name, was a Frenchman. One of the blue blooded Normans who crossed the channel with William the Conqueror to subdue the Saxons.
Scott's "Ivanhoe", Dicken's "Child's History of England", and all English histories give the details of the conquest of England, which the Encyclopedia Britannica says is the most important event in English history. The Saxons were bitter foes of the conquerors, but the final amalgamation produced the finest race that the world has ever known, the present "English" and American people. There is no doubt that our first English Ancestor, Lord Walter De Burnham (Le Veutre) was as cordially hated by the Saxon "churls" who were subject to his sway in the eight villages, as were the other Norman Conquerors.
Take any modern map of England and turn to the county of Norfolk and you will see the eastern part of the county, the village of Norwich, in which lived the three Burnham Boys who emigrated to America in 1635.
Burnham is a very familiar name to Englishmen. There is a village of Burnham on the southeast coast of Essex county, two of them in Lincoln county, and several others in England. All readers of Shakespeare's Macbeth will remember how "Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane shall come again".
Our old Saxon name of Burnham is an honored one. In our blood is mingled that of the conquering Norman and the sturdy Saxon. The family of Burnham was one of the oldest families in the United States of America. We have a right to be proud of the name Burnham.
Slocum Family Monument, Prospect Hill Cemetery - Northville, NY- USA
