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Bristol dates from about 1681, when Samuel Clift established a ferry across the Delaware River at this location (Green 1911:20). A settlement, largely comprised of Quakers, soon grew up around Clift's ferry, and in 1697 the residents petitioned the Provincial Council to establish the community as a market town. The Council granted this petition, making Bristol the third town established in the province, following Chester and Philadelphia, and later that year Phineas Pemberton surveyed the town and laid out lots (Davis 1905:1:316-317). The community's original boundaries consisted of the Delaware River on the southeast, Walnut Street on the northeast, Pond Street on the northwest, and Mill Creek, presently buried beneath the municipal parking lot behind Mill Street, on the southwest (Green 1938:17). These boundaries encompass the southwestern portion of the Bristol Historic District.