1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Burlington (Vermont)
BURLINGTON, a city, port of entry and the county-seat of Chittenden county, Vermont, U.S.A., on the E. shore of Lake Champlain, in the N.W. part of the state, 90 m. S.E. of Montreal, and 300 m. N. of New York. It is the largest city in the state. Pop. (1880) 11,365; (1890) 14,590; (1900) 18,640, of whom 3726 were foreign-born; (1910, census) 20,468. It is served by the Central Vermont and the Rutland railways, and by lines of passenger and freight steamboats on Lake Champlain. The city is attractively situated on an arm of Lake Champlain, being built on a strip of land extending about 6 m. south from the mouth of the Winooski river along the lake shore and gradually rising from the water’s edge to a height of 275 ft.; its situation and its cool and equable summer climate have given it a wide reputation as a summer resort, and it is a centre for yachting, canoeing and other aquatic sports. During the winter months it has ice-boat regattas. Burlington is the seat of the university of Vermont (1791; non-sectarian and co-educational), whose official title in 1865 became “The University of Vermont and State Agricultural College.” The university is finely situated on a hill (280 ft. above the lake) commanding a charming view of the city, lake, the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains. It has departments of arts, sciences and medicine, and a library of 74,800 volumes and 32,936 pamphlets housed in the Billings Library, designed by H. H. Richardson. The university received the Federal grants under the Morrill acts of 1862 and 1890, and in connexion with it the Vermont agricultural experiment station is maintained. At Burlington are also the Mt St Mary’s academy (1889, Roman Catholic), conducted by the Sisters of Mercy; and two business colleges. Among the principal buildings are the city hall, the Chittenden county court house, the Federal and the Y.M.C.A. buildings, the Masonic temple, the Roman Catholic cathedral and the Edmunds high school. Burlington’s charitable institutions include the Mary Fletcher hospital, the Adams mission home, the Lousia Howard mission, the Providence orphan asylum, and homes for aged women, friendless women and destitute children. The Fletcher free public library (47,000 volumes in 1908) is housed in a Carnegie building. In the city are two sanitariums. The city has two parks (one, Ethan Allen Park, is on a bluff in the north-west part of the city, and commands a fine view) and four cemeteries; in Green Mount Cemetery, which overlooks the Winooski valley, is a monument over the grave of Ethan Allen, who lived in Burlington from 1778 until his death. Fort Ethan Allen, a United States military post, is about 3 m. east of the city, with which it is connected by an electric line. Burlington is the most important manufacturing centre in the state; among its manufactures are sashes, doors and blinds, boxes, furniture and wooden-ware, cotton and woollen goods, patent medicines, refrigerators, house furnishings, paper and machinery. In 1905 the city’s factory products were valued at $6,355,754, three-tenths of which was the value of lumber and planing mill products, including sashes, doors and blinds. The Winooski river, which forms the boundary between Burlington and the township of Colchester and which enters Lake Champlain N.W. of the city, furnishes valuable water-power, but most of the manufactories are operated by steam. Quantities of marble were formerly taken from quarries in the vicinity. The city is a wholesale distributing centre for all northern Vermont and New Hampshire, and is one of the principal lumber markets in the east, most of the lumber being imported from Canada. It is the port of entry for the Vermont customs district, whose exports and imports were valued respectively in 1907 at $8,333,024 and $5,721,034. A charter for a town to be founded here was granted by the province of New Hampshire in 1763, but no settlement was made until 1774. Burlington was chartered as a city in 1865.