BURLINGTON, a city of Burlington county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on the east bank of the Delaware river and the Pennsyl vania railroad, 18m. N.E. of Philadelphia. The population was in 1920, and was 10,844 in 1930 by the Federal census. It is in the heart of a famous peach-growing region. The principal manufactures are cast-iron pipe, pipe fittings, silk, typewriter ribbons and carbon paper. The State Masonic Home is here. Burlington is noted for its historic associations, and interesting old buildings, some of which date from early in the 18th century. One of the oldest is now the headquarters of the Daughters of the American Revolution. St. Mary's Church was built in 1703. The birthplace of James Fenimore Cooper is the home of the Historical Society, and the birthplace of Captain James Lawrence (1781-1813) still stands. Ivy-mantled St. Mary's Hall, a school for girls, was founded in 1837. The Burlington Society Library, established in 1757, and still conducted under its original charter from George II., is one of the oldest public libraries in the country. A trust fund established in 1682, when the assembly of West Jersey gave to Burlington "Matinicunk Island," opposite the town, "for the maintaining of a school for the education of youth," still yields revenue, which is used for the public schools.
Burlington was settled in 1677 by a colony of English Quakers, and was at first called New Beverly, but was soon renamed after Bridlington, the Yorkshire home of many of the settlers. It was incorporated as a town in 1693, and became the seat of Govern ment of West Jersey. After the union of East and West Jersey (1702) it was one of the two capitals of the new royal province, and until 1790 the meetings of the legislature alternated between Burlington and Perth Amboy. The city was chartered in The first newspaper in the state, the New Jersey Gazette, estab lished here in 1777, was influential during the Revolution.