BINGHAMTON, a city of New York, U.S.A., picturesquely situated on the Susquehanna river, at the mouth of the Chenango, 125m. S.W. of Albany, near the Pennsylvania border; the county seat of Broome county. It is on the Appalachian scenic highway, and is served by the Erie, the Delaware and Hudson, and the Lackawanna railways. A commercial air-port is projected. The area is 9.4sq.m. The population was 17,317 in 188o; 39,647 in 1900; 66,800 in 1920, of which 10,368 were foreign-born white; and was 76,662 in 1930.
Dairy farming is the agricultural specialty of the fertile river valleys, which contain some of the finest farms in the State. The farm bureau of Broome county, organized in Binghamton in 1911, is the oldest in the country. Easy access to large markets, sea and lake ports, coal, steel and raw materials has favoured in dustrial development. Incoming and outgoing freight amounts to about 1,000,000 tons a year. The output in 1927 of the indus tries of Broome county, chiefly in Binghamton and its suburbs Johnson City and Endicott (2 i and 9 m. distant respectively) was valued at $153,395,733. The leading product is shoes, and the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Corporation is one of the largest in the world, employing 15,00o men and women. Among the other important manufactures are patent medicine, washing-machines, pipe-organs, pianos, cameras, furniture, valves, cigars, kitchen hardware, silk, motion-picture films, computing and tabulating machinery and various articles of iron and steel.
The city has about 6o wholesale houses and its retail trading radius of 4om. covers a population of 200,000. Bank deposits amounted to $270,010,000 in 1926 and the assessed valuation of property was $114,789,185. A beautiful bridge of reinforced con crete has been built as a memorial to the men who served in the World War. East of the city is a State hospital for the insane.
The site of Binghamton was in Indian territory until 1779, when a decisive victory was won by General Clinton and General Sullivan at Newtown (now Elmira). An Iroquois village known as Ochenang had been situated here, and the white settlement, dating from 1787, was first called Chenango Point. The greater part of the city stands on land originally included in the "Bingham Patent," a large tract on both sides of the Susquehanna, owned by William Bingham (1751-1804), a merchant of Philadelphia. A village was laid out by his agent in 180o. It was incorporated in 1834, and received a city charter in 1867. Weekly stage service to Newburgh and Owego was established in 1816; the first boat on the Chenango canal reached Binghamton in 1837; and the first passenger train from New York arrived over the Erie, Dec. 26, 1848.