Burlington, NC Summary

Burlington is located off I-85 and has strong associations with several historic battlefields, such as the Alamance Battlefield Site where 2,000 farmers called the Regulators were defeated by 1,000 troops led by Royal Governor William Tryon on May 16, 1771. The farmers were rebelling against the taxes and dishonest officials imposed upon them by wealthy Eastern planters.

Three markers denote the sites of local battles that occurred in 1781 during the Revolutionary War. Pyle’s Defeat Marker commemorates the slaughter of about 100 loyalists by rebel forces.

At the Clapp’s Mill Marker, rebel forces retreated under fire from the British forces of General Cornwallis and, at Lindley’s Mill Marker in Graham, more than 250 soldiers were killed or wounded.

Burlington’s historic district dates back to the 1880s. The Captain James White House is an 1871 Queen Anne style mansion that has been converted into an art gallery, while at the restored Cedarock Historical Working Farm, nineteenth-century farming techniques are demonstrated. The Alamance County Historical Museum was once the home of nineteenth-century textile pioneer Edwin Michael Holt. Also of interest is one of only 14 Dentzel menagerie carousels in existence; it was made in 1910 and it is now the centerpiece of City Park.