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How the Township was founded

Among those who came in the 'Kent' and settled at and near what is now Burlington were Thomas Olivew, Daniel Wills, William Peachy, William Clayton, John Cripps, Thomas Harding, Thomas Nositer, Thomas Fairnsworth, Morgan Drewet, William Pennton, Henry Jennings, William Hibes, Samuel Lovett, John Woolston, William Woodmancy, Christopher Saunders and Robert Powell.

John Wilkinson and William Perkins, with theri families were passengers, but died on the voyage, John Kinsey, one of the commissioners, died before reaching Burlington, but was buried there. One Marshall, a carpenter, was a passenger, and his services were greatly in demand as soon as building was begun and improvements inaugurated. Another who accompanied the pioneers to Burlington was Richard Noble, a surveyor, who had come out from England with John Fenwick two years before, and whoe profession had familiarized him with the country.

To Noble all authorities agree in stating was at once committed the duty of laying out the town - a labor in which William Matlack and others of the young men assisted. A broad and imposing main street was opened through the forest, running at right angles to the river southward into the country. This was what has come to be known as High or Main Street. It is probable it did not at first extend far south of Broad Street. Another, crossing it, extended east and west through the middle of the island.

A third was opened along the river side. The town thus laid out was divided into twenty properties, ten in the eastern part for the Yorkshire and ten in the western part for the London Proprietors. The twon lots in Burlington were mostly of ten or eleven acres, intended only for a house, orchard and garden. Some along the river were smaller.

Everybody was speedily busy making preparations for the winter. Under the direction of Marshall, building was vigorously prosecuted. The woods rang with the blows of the builders' axes. On the Main Street, near Broad, in a small opening cleared for the purpose, was erected a tent designed to serve as a temporary meeting house. At first the dwellings were either mere caves hollowed out in banks and protected at their entrances and boards, or the most primitive shanties imaginable.

The opinion that they were build of logs is pronounced erroneous. Two Dutch travelers thus described Burlington two years after it was laid out: "The English and many others have houses made of nothing but clap-boards, as they call them here. They make a wooden frame, as in Westphalia and at Altona, but not so strong, then split boards of clapwood like coopers' staves, though unbent, so that the thickest end is about a little finger thick, and the other is made sharp like the end of a knife. They are about five or six feet long, and are nailed on the ends lapping over each other. When it is cold and windy the best people plaster them with clay."

These abodes were characteristically English in their primitive structure. It was the Swede who intruced the block-house in America. Soon the settlement began to take on the appearance of a town, and to be regarded as worthy of a name. In memory of an old Yorkshire village it was christened Burlington.

Smith says it was at first called New Beverly, and later Bridlington, and by that name it appears on Holme's map, dated 1682. Mr. Brown is authority for the statement that the earliest letters written from the place, some within a week or two of the beginning of the town, were dated at Burlington. Daniel Wills gave to one portion of the neighborhood the name of his native "Northampton."

Thomas Olive, who located in Willingborough, gave that locality its name. York Street and London Bridge also attest that the minds of the pioneers frequently reverted to their native Albion.

Part 1 - Our Beginnings
Part 3 - Frontier Settlements -- Various Interests Established -- The Indians