BURLINGTON, a city of Burlington county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on the E. bank
of the Delaware river, 18 m. N.E. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1890) 7264; (1900)
7392, of whom 636 were foreign-born and 590 were of negro descent; (1905)
8038; (1910) 8336. It is served by the Pennsylvania railway, and by
passenger and freight steamboat lines on the Delaware river, connecting
with river and Atlantic coast ports. Burlington is a pleasant residential
city with a number of interesting old mansions long antedating the War of
Independence, some of them the summer homes of old Philadelphia families.
The Burlington Society library, established in 1757 and still conducted
under its original charter granted by George II., is one of the oldest
public libraries in America. At Burlington are St Mary's Hall (1837;
Protestant Episcopal), founded by Bishop G.W. Doane, one of the first
schools for girls to be established in the country, Van Rensselaer Seminary
and the New Jersey State Masonic home. In the old St Mary's church
(Protestant Episcopal), which was built in 1703 and has been called St
Anne's as well as St Mary's, Daniel Coxe (1674-1739), first provincial
grand master of the lodge of Masons in America, was buried; a commemorative
bronze tablet was erected in 1907. Burlington College, founded by Bishop
Doane in 1864, was closed as a college in 1877, but continued as a church
school until 1900; the buildings subsequently passed into the hands of an
iron manufacturer. Burlington's principal industries are the manufacture of
shoes and cast-iron water and gas pipes. Burlington was settled in 1677 by
a colony of English Quakers. The settlement was first known as New Beverly,
but was soon renamed after Bridlington (Burlington), the Yorkshire home of
many of the settlers. In 1682 the assembly of West Jersey gave to
Burlington "Matinicunk Island," above the town, "for the maintaining of a
school for the education of youth"; revenues from a part of the island are
still used for the support of the public schools, and the trust fund is one
of the oldest for educational purposes in the United States. Burlington was
incorporated as a town in 1693 (re-incorporated, 1733), and became the seat
of government of West Jersey. On the union of East and West Jersey in 1702,
it became one of the two seats of government of the new royal province, the
meetings of the legislature generally alternating between Burlington and
Perth Amboy, under both the colonial and t