Bristol

Bristol is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 23 miles northeast of Center City Philadelphia, opposite Burlington, New Jersey on the Delaware River. It predates Philadelphia, being settled in 1681 and first incorporated in 1720. After 1834, it became very important to the development of the American Industrial Revolution as the terminus city of the Delaware Canal, providing greater Philadelphia with the day's high tech anthracite fuels from the Lehigh Canal via Easton. The canal and a short trip on the Delaware also gave the town access to the mineral resources available in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York via each of the Morris Canal, the Delaware and Hudson Canal, and the Delaware and Raritan Canal, and connected the community to those markets and trade from New York City.

Although its charter was revised in 1905, the original charter remains in effect, making it the third-oldest borough in Pennsylvania after Chester and Germantown.