William BURNHAM

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Son of Thomas Burnham and Anna Wright

Notes:

Name:
He was Constable in 1692. Belonged to one of the most respectable families of Wethersfield. He drew land in 1694 and received other land by deed of gift from his father. The history of the Burnham Family erroneously gives the date of his marriage as 1681 and the birth of his first child, Elizabeth, eight years later than it should be.

William married Elizabeth LOOMIS on 28 Jun 1681 in Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut, USA. Elizabeth (daughter of Nathaniel LOOMIS and Elizabeth MOORE) was born on 07 Aug 1655 in Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut, USA; died on 19 Nov 1717 in Wethersfield, Hartford, Connecticut, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Elizabeth BURNHAM was born on 20 May 1682; died on 09 Sep 1741 in Wethersfield, Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
2. Rev William BURNHAM was born on 17 Jul 1684; died on 23 Sep 1750.
3. Joseph BURNHAM was born on 7 Aug 1687; died on 20 Apr 1760.
4. Nathaniel BURNHAM was born on 3 Jan 1690; died on 16 Dec 1754.
5. Jonathan BURNHAM was born on 21 Mar 1692; died on 24 Jan 1751/2.
6. Mary BURNHAM was born on 2 Sep 1694; died on 17 Apr 1715.
7. Abigail BURNHAM was born on 16 Dec 1696; died on 2 Jan 1724.
8. David BURNHAM was born on 12 Oct 1698; died on 10 Sep 1741.

Notes:

Name:
He is said to have been of Hertfordshire descent; came to Hartford about 1647 or 8, perhaps from Ipswich. Others of the name went from there to Wenham. A Thomas Burhan aged 18, "imbarqued for the Barbadoes, Nov. 20, 1635, Peter Blackloe, master; took the oath of Allegenance and Supremacie; examined by the minister of the Towne of Gravesend." (N.E. Reg., 14, p. 357) His name first appears on the Colonial Records of Conn., Dec. 7, 1648; was made Freeman, May 21, 1657, having been elected Constable the previous February and Chimney Viewer Feb. 11, 1658/9; was in the list of Freemen at Windsor, Oct. 11, 1669. He was a large land holder and speculator, buying land from the Indians. In June, 1659, he was required "to appear at ye Court in Octbr to answr for his former cariage, complayned of to ye Court," etc. He was a lawyer and an educated man, and this complaint was in regard to one of his cases. He was attorney in 1662, for Abigail Betts, accused of blasphemy. For offending the Court in his successful defense of her, "saving her neck," as the court record has it, he was condemned to "ye prison keep", but the Court dared not attempt to carry this sentence into effect, for fear of an appeal to England. They deprived him, however, of his citizenship, for a time, and prohibited him from acting as attorney except in his own cases. His offense seems to have been that he compelled the Court to try the woman by the English rather than the Mosaic law, which they preferred and were in the habit of using. At the General Court in April, some of his purchase from Tantonimo, Sachem of the Podunk Indians, was set aside, on the ground that the lands were not the Sachem's to sell. His house on the east side of the River, was one of the five fortified and garrisoned during the Indian War, 1675.

Thomas married Anna WRIGHT in 1639. Anna was born in 1620 in England; died on 5 Aug 1703. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]