ELIZABETH, N. J., city, county-seat of Union County, on Newark Bay and the Arthur Kill, and on the Pennsylvania, Lehigh Valley, Baltimore and Ohio, Philadelphia and Reading and New Jersey Central railroads, 14 miles southwest of New York. Elizabeth has a good harbor admitting vessels of 25 feet draught. Coal and iron reach tidewater here from the Pennsylvania fields and are transshipped here. The city has steamer communication with New York and is the residence of many who com mute daily to the latter city. It has many fine homes and wide streets, well paved. The chief articles manu factured are sewing-machines (one of the shops of the Singer Manufacturing Company, employing about 10,000 people, being located here), oilcloth, hats, saws, mill-ma chinery, stoves, hardware, edge-tools, harness, cordage, combs, leather and rubber worlcs, oil refineries, foundries, chemical works, ship build ing plants, wire and cable, tools, electromotors, castings and bronze powder. The United States Census of Manufactures for 1914 showed within the city limits 184 industrial establish ments of factory grade, employing 14,297 per sons, 12,871 being. wage. earners, receiving $8,198,000 annually m wages. The capital in vested aggregated $31,037,000 and the year's output was valued at $31,428,000: of this, $14, 921,000 was the value added by manufacture. The shops of the Central Railroad, employing about 1,000 hands, and the Crescent Steel Works and shipyard are located here. There are three banks, one savings bank and a trust company with a combined capitalization of $700,000 and deposits of $7,154,000, and building and loan associations. Among public institutions are the
Alexian Brothers' Hospital, General Hospital, Saint Elizabeth Hospital, Orphan Asylum, Old Ladies Home and Public Library. The educa tional institutions include the Battin and Pingry high schools, the Vail-Deane School, a business college and 11 public schools. The city has electric lights and street railways, many hand some churches and contains an old tavern where Washington stopped on his way to New York for his inauguration. Gen. Winfield Scott's home the Boudinot House and the old Living ston Mansion are located here. It was settled in 1664 as Elizabethtown and fourears later J the first General Assembly of New Jersey met here. For two years after 1755 it was the capital of the Colony of New Jersey. During the Revolution it suffered from its position be tween the contending forces. In 1789 it was chartered as a borough, as a town in 1796, and as a city in 1855. Its revenue averages about $2,250,000. In 1746 the college of New Jersey (now Princeton) was established here. Among its early citizens were the great rivals Alex ander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. There are many fine types of architecture of the Revolu tionary period still standing. Pop. 82,411. Consult Hetfield, 'History of Elizabeth' (New York 1868).