When James Wilbur Burnham was born on 3 August 1853, in Aurora, Kane, Illinois, United States, his father, Luther Sylvester Burnham, was 36 and his mother, Charlotte Joslin, was 31. He married Eliza Jane Argyle on 11 November 1874, in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States. They were the parents of at least 2 sons and 4 daughters. He lived in Bountiful, Davis, Utah, United States in 1880 and Salt Lake, Utah, United States for about 10 years. He died on 5 October 1919, in Pleasant View, Weber, Utah, United States, at the age of 66, and was buried in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States.
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William Rand opened a small printing shop in Chicago. Doing most of the work himself for the first two years he decided to hire some help. Rand Hired Andrew McNally, an Irish Immigrant, to work in his shop. After doing business with the Chicago Tribune, Rand and McNally were hired to run the Tribune's entire printing operation. Years later, Rand and McNally established Rand McNally & Co after purchasing the Tribune's printing business. They focused mainly on printing tickets, complete railroad guides and timetables for the booming railroad industry around the city. What made the company successful was the detailed maps of roadways, along with directions to certain places. Rand McNally was the first major map publisher to embrace a system of numbered highways and erected many of the roadside highway signs that have been adopted by state and federal highway authorities. The company is still making and updating the world maps that are looked at every day.
The Fort Tejon earthquake, on January 9, 1857, registered at 7.9, making it one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in the United States. Only two people were killed, largely due to the sparse population in the area where the earthquake occurred. As a result of the large scale shaking, the Kern River was turned upstream and fish were stranded miles from Tulare Lake as the waters were rocked so far from its banks.
In 1871, a cow kicked over a lantern, causing a fire that burned down half of Chicago. Today this city is the third largest in the US.
English: habitational name from any of several places called Burnham. Those in Buckinghamshire (Burnham Beeches), Norfolk (various villages), and Essex (Burnham-on-Crouch) are named with Old English burna ‘stream’ + hām ‘homestead’. In the case of Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, however, the second element is Old English hamm ‘water meadow’, while Burnham in Lincolnshire is named from brunnum, dative plural of Old Norse brunnr ‘spring’, originally used after a preposition, i.e. ‘(at) the springs’.
History: In 1635 Robert Burnham and his two brothers came from England to Ipswich, MA, after their ship was wrecked on the coast of Maine. In the mid 18th century John Burnham and his son, also called John, were among the early settlers in what became the state of VT. In 1785, the younger John Burnham established himself at Middletown, CT.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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