"Balcombe, The Story Of A Sussex Village", by Leslie Fairweather

In a description of a present day house "Forest Ridge", the author says: "On the site of the present house once stood a farm called 'Scannons' which was the home in the sixteeth and seventeenth centuries of a family called Balcombe. In 1615 it was the property of one Richard Balcombe. The Balcombe family flourished as yeoman farmers between 1543 and 1645. Many members of this family followed the early pilgrim fathers to America after the first epic voyage of the Mayflower in 1620. A puritanical streak caused them to cut out the superfluities, and Balcombe in England became Balcom in America. Although the spelling in some local records here omits the final "be". In America, the families seem to have flourished and they have regular get-togethers. There is a record of a hugh gathering of Balcoms at Buffalo in 1901 at the Pan American Exposition. This was reputedly the fifteenth such assembly.