The wife of John Foulsham was Mary Gilman. From this couple the American Folsoms and their allies from marriages with the female descendants of the family have sprung. The ancestors of John Foulsham may be traced backward a period of near six hundred years, and many of the family have honorable mention in English history. The earliest mention is concerning John Foulsham of Foulsham, prior of a Carmelite monastery in Norwich, and "præses provincialis" of all England. This Foulsham is spoken of in Bayle's catalogue of eminent worthies as "no mean proficient in controversial theology, knowing how, by means of syllogystic tricks, to turn white into black and men into donkeys." He died in the great plague at Norwich in 1348. A certain John de Foulsham is spoken of in Blomefield's History of Norfolk as an "eloquent, unflinching opponent of the corruptions of the times." It is possible that this may be the Carmelite prior above mentioned, though the prefix _de_ leaves the matter somewhat in doubt. As to the original derivation of the family name, Hon. George Folsom, of Philadelphia, in one of the manuscripts left by him, says: "It arose upon the adoption of surnames in England, from the town of Foulsham, a village in the county of Norfolk, six or eight miles north of Hingham, in which county the family was seated for many centuries, possessing estates in fifteen different places." Thus John de, or John of Foulsham, became John Foulsham. The orthography and pronunciation of the name have varied in the family itself, as well as among those writing and pronouncing it. The first Anglo-American bearing the name spelled it "Foulsham." His son, Deacon John, spelled it "Fullsam" in 1709, and it is signed "Foullsam" in his last will--1715. In one instance, in the Hingham town records, it is spelled "Fulsham," but always afterward, "Foulsham." In the Exeter records it is written uniformly "Folsom" with but one exception, when it is written by the town clerk "Foulshame." In the records of the first parish, Haverhill, Massachusetts, it is written "Foulsham," "Foulsam," "Folsham" and "Fulsom." Originally it was doubtless spelled "Foulshame," its etymological significance being the _fowls' home_, a breeding place or mart. It was probably at first written with a hyphen, as Fouls-hame, but the final syllable was eventually shortened. Everywhere it is now written _Folsom_ by those having the name, and is pronounced like _wholesome_.