Historic Yorkshire Alliance

The Historic Yorkshire Alliance was created by residents and business owners in the Yorkshire Neighborhood of the City, bounded by High and Broad Streets, the Assicunk Creek and the Delaware River. Founded under the auspices of the City's Neighborhood Preservation Program and the NJ Department of Community Affairs, the Alliance works to sustain the historic beauty and value of the neighborhood, and build identity, pride and a sense of community among residents. At the 1995 State Conference for Neighborhood Preservation, the Alliance won the "Neighborhood Organization of the Year" award.

The Alliance meets the second Wednesday of every month except August and January, in the cafeteria of the Captain James Lawrence School. Meetings include information and education programs and guest speakers, and the Alliance also sponsors community events through the year, including an annual neighborhood yard sale and a holiday home decorating contest. Membership is free, and open to all residents and organizations in the Yorkshire neighborhood.

Oliver Cromwell Black History Society

The Oliver Cromwell Black History Society was formed in 1983 for the preservation and research of Black Heritage in the City of Burlington and throughout the United States. The Society is named for Oliver Cromwell, a Black soldier in the Revolution who was decorated by George Washington and lived in Burlington after the war.

The Society meets each month, and holds an annual Black Heritage Historical Art and Essay Contest for students in Burlington City and Burlington Township. The Society's efforts were also instrumental in the designation of the William Allen School as a historic site on both the National and State Historic Registers. The Society and the Institute work together to encourage young men to represent African-American soldiers in Revolutionary War recreations at the Old Barracks Museum in Trenton, some fifteen miles away.

Colonial Burlington Foundation

PO Box 1552
Burlington, NJ 08016

Founded in 1950 by the late historian and author "Doc" Bisbee and several other residents, the Colonial Burlington Foundation works to preserve colonial structures in Burlington City.


The Foundation's primary project, the Revell House, dates to 1685. The Foundation sells gingerbread to raise money for ongoing maintenance of the house at the annual Wood Street Fair each September, which also features arts, crafts, antiques and collectibles, and tours of the house.

City of Burlington Historical Society

The City of Burlington Historical Society is an action-oriented historical organization which works to maintain the heritage and culture of the City of Burlington. With assistance from the City, the Society preserves the Carriage House, Hoskins House and Friends Schoolhouse.

The Society also sponsors events and programs which encourage citizens and visitors to take interest in the history and culture of Burlington, including the Storefront Decorating Contest each holiday season, Holiday House tour every other year, High Street Art show in September, and the City's annual Christmas Parade. The Society also offers guided tours of historic Burlington.

The Society meets on the second Monday of each month at 7:30 PM in the Daniel Keegan Center, located at 522 Wood Street. For more information on the Society, call (609) 386-3993, or e-mail the Society.

Burlington County Historical Society

451 High Street
Burlington City, NJ
08016-4514
(609) 386-4773
FAX (609) 386-4828

What famous American author created the characters Hawkeye and Natty Bumpo? Who uttered the immortal words "Don't give up the ship!" during heated battle in the War of 1812? Is it true that jinrickshaws, man-powered carriages, were produced in Burlington, New Jersey and exported to the Orient? These answers to these questions await you at the Burlington County Historical Society!

Learn many facinating facts as you tour the Society's complex including the Bard-How House, the James Fenimore Cooper House, and the Captain James Lawrence House, complete with period furnishings and decorative arts, and the Aline Wolcott Museum Galleries featuring "Ingenuity and Craftsmanship: The Culture of Production in Burlington County." The Society also owns the Collins-Jones House, currently being restored.

Expand your knowledge of local history by spending an afternoon in the Society's Delia Biddle-Pugh research library and archives. Utilize the Society's collections of historical photographs, maps, manuscripts and deeds to investigate the history of this unique county or trace your own family's Burlington County roots via census records and local newspapers available on microfilm. The library's collections also include record books from Atsion, papers of the Abolition Society, and the James Fenimore Cooper collection.

Access to the Society's museum galleries and research library in the Corson Poley Center is $3.00 ($1.50 for children 12 and under). The Society is open from 1:00 to 5:00 P.M. Tuesday through Saturday.

40-minute guided tours of the Society's three period houses are available for $3.00 ($1.50 for children 12 and under), beginning every 50 minutes during the hours the Society is open. Both options are available for a combined price of $5.00 ($2.50 for children 12 and under). Visit the Society's welcome center at 451 High Street, Room 101, to get started.

The Society's Gift Shop is open during regular tour hours and features a selection of books (including exhibit catalogs for the Society's permanent and temporary exhibitions), reproduction antique jewelry, Williamsburg pottery, tinware, woven coverlets and much more.

The Society presents numerous programs, events, tours and exhibits throughout the year, many open to the public, others restricted to members. For more information on facilities, programs, tours or membership, call, e-mail or visit the Society.

The Friendly Institution

Founded on Christmas Eve, 1796 by Nathaniel Coleman and several other local Quakers, the Friendly Institution became non-denominational shortly thereafter when the wife of Mayor Joseph Bloomfield asked to join.

This local charitable organization is still in existence today, but as always is very secretive. Its members, primarily women, strive to assist the needy without being noticed. The Institution's motto is, "To spare the modest blush, to give unseen."

Library Company of Burlington

The Library Company of Burlington is the second oldest public library in New Jersey, and the seventh oldest in the nation. It has operated continuously since 1758, when it was chartered by King George II of England. The Library was the first to print a catalogue, also in 1758. Most of its original 700 volumes were gifts from prominent residents.

The collection was originally housed in the parlor of Thomas Rodman's house at 446 High Street, and moved in 1767 to Robert Smith's house at 218 High Street. In 1789, Captain Joseph Bloomfield donated a piece of land on a small street near his mansion (now known as Library Street) and a small building was constructed to house the collection - the first library building in New Jersey.

The large stone building at 23 West Union Street which currently houses the Library was built in 1864, and expanded in the 1900's. The Library's collection includes a few thousand antiquarian books, hundreds of which were included in the original 1758 catalogue. More than 250 of these original books, some published as early as the 1550's, have been cleaned and stored in special archival boxes at the Library.

In addition to being historically significant, the Library offers the services modern patrons have come to expect, including a collection of over 45,000 circulating materials, computerized indexing and reservation of 750,000 more through the Burlington Libraries Information Consortium (BLINC), magazines, videos, and access to CD-ROM reference materials, the Internet, and educational computer games. The Library also hosts special events, ranging from children's programs to plays, seminars, and movies.

For more information, call the Library at (609) 386-1273.

Board of Island Managers

The Board of Island Managers is charged with overseeing the earliest educational trust in the United States, formed in 1682 when the provincial government of West Jersey gave Burlington Island to Burlington City, on the condition that all revenue from use of the island be used to fund education.

The Board itself was organized in 1727, and has dispensed money from the trust to support education for over 200 years. Revenues from use of the island have been used to provide education for the poor, construct and improve facilities for public schools, and reduce local school taxes.

The Quakers

The first Europeans to settle Burlington were members of the Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers. Founded by George Fox in seventeenth-century England, the Friends quickly met with persecution for their refusal to bear arms, take oaths, and pay tithes. Less than a quarter-century after the Society was founded, Friends began leaving England for the religious freedom of America. More than one third of those originally purchasing land in Burlington had been fined or imprisoned for their beliefs in England. Even as their ship, the Kent, sailed down the Thames River, King Charles II boarded it from his royal barge and wished them a safe voyage. As the King's own laws led to much of the abuse the Quakers received in England, this blessing is usually viewed as a polite "go away," at best.

Since 1677, Burlington has been the home of many Friends, including Cyrus Bustill, Isaac Collins, Thomas Gardiner, John and Samuel Gummere, schoolmaster John Griscom of the Burlington Friends School, John Hoskins Jr., James Kinsey, Alcazar builder Thomas Olive, Samuel Smith and pharmacist William J. Allinson. Many prominent Friends are buried behind the Meeting House on High Street, as is Chief Ockanickon of the Mantas tribe of the Lenape.

Historically, the Friends in Burlington were known for their pacifism, religious tolerance, and egalitarianism. The Lenape were befriended, but not converted, and trials involving Indians were decided by a jury of 6 settlers and 6 Indians. In 1757, Samuel Smith and other Friends founded the New Jersey Society for Helping the Indians. Friends in the Philadelphia area were forbidden from owning slaves after 1776, and in 1792 efforts began to educate freed slaves. In 1796, Friends founded a local charity, The Friendly Institution. In the 1800's, the Burlington Pharmacy was visited often by abolitionist Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whitter, and was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Early Friends also founded the Endeavor Fire Company, oldest in the city.

Related reading:

The Quaker Reader

ISBN 087574916X - Amazon.

Quaker Spirituality: Selected Writings

ISBN 0809125102 - Amazon.

Quakers and the American Family: British Settlement in the Delaware Valley

ISBN 0195049764 - Amazon.

Council of West Jersey Proprietors

The original Council of West Jersey Proprietors was composed of men who had purchased large blocks of land, and were designated by the British crown to govern the surveying, granting, and purchasing of land within West Jersey. The Proprietors negotiated with the local tribes of the Lenape to purchase land in the Burlington area, and also approved the Concessions and Agreements of 1676, the original laws of the region.

Proprietorships have been transferred by inheritance and in some cases by sale of land, and the holders of proprietorships have met in Burlington every April since 1688. The complete records of the Council of West Jersey Proprietors are housed in the Surveyor General's office on West Broad Street near High Street.

Related reading:

Influence of the Proprietors in Founding the State of New Jersey

ISBN 0404610234 - Amazon. 

Proprietors, Patronage and Paper Money: Legislative Politics in New Jersey, 1703-1776

ISBN 0813511615 - Amazon. 

The Mantas Tribe of the Lenape

When Europeans arrived in what is now Burlington in the 1600's, they found the area inhabited by the Mantas, or "Leaping Frogs," tribe of the Lenape. The tribe referred to the riverfront land where the City now stands as "Techichohocki," or "Oldest planted land."

During the years that the European presence was limited to a trading post on Burlington Island, relations were sometimes strained, but in 1676, the West Jersey Proprietors negotiated with the Mantas and other nearby Lenape tribes to formally purchase the land where Burlington City stands and the surrounding area.

Ockanickon, Chief of the Mantas at the time, befriended the Quakers who arrived the next year, and was frequently involved in their discussions and councils. His participation was doubtless helpful in ensuring that relations between the tribe and the English settlers remained pleasant.

Ockanickon died in 1681, and though he never converted to Quakerism, is buried near a huge sycamore just behind the Burlington Meeting House on High Street. A boulder near the tree bears his mark, and a metal plate with his last words: "Be plain and fair to all, both Indian and Christian, as I have been."

Related reading:

The Lenape Indians

ISBN 079101665X - Amazon. 

The Lenape or Delaware Indians

ISBN 0935137017 - Amazon. 

William Penn's Own Account of the Lenni Lenape or Delawre Indians

ISBN 0912608137 - Amazon.