ELMIRA, N. Y., city, county-seat of Che fining County, on both sides of the Chemung River, and on the Delaware and Lackawanna, the Lehigh Valley, the Northern Central and the Erie railways; 100 miles southeast of Roch ester, 149 miles east-southeast of Buffalo, and 46 miles south-southwest of Ithaca. Among the • more important establishments are railroad-.
car shops, iron and steel bridge works, steel plate works, valve and radiator works, manu factories of boots and shoes, automobile parts, tables, bicycles, glass, fire engines, tobacco and cigars, boilers and engines, doors, sashes and blinds, hard-wood finishing works, silk and knitting. mills, tobacco warehouses, dyeworks, breweries and aluminum works. The district is fertile, and there are also stone-quarters in the vicinity. Here are located. Elmira. College (q.v.), a State armory, the State reformatory (see Ea.1,111tA REFORMATORY), the Arnot-Ogden Memorial Hospital, the Steele Memorial Free Library, a Federal government building housing the Federal courts, the post office, etc., and various charitable institutions. The park sys tem includes Wisner, Riverside, Eldridge and Hoffman parks. Elmira is finely laid out, and has an excellent water supply, and gas and electric lighting. Elmira was permanently set
tled in 1788, was incorporated as the village of Newtown in 1815, and in 1828 was reincor porated as the village of Elmira. In 1836 it be came the county-seat of Chemung County, and in 1864 obtained its city charter. During the Civil War it was the State recruiting and mili tary rendezvous, and in 1864-65 one of the Federal prisons for Confederate prisoners of war was here situated. Near the present site of Elmira the battle of Newtown was fought, 29 Aug. 1779. General Sullivan, with an Ameri can force numbering 5,000, defeating a com bined band of Tories and Indians commanded respectively by Sir John Johnson and Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) and numbering ap proximately 1,500. The battle-ground is now marked by a memorial to Sullivan. Elmira is governed, under a charter of 1906, by a mayor, who is biennially elected, and a common coun cil, which is unicameral. In addition to the aldermen who are chosen by wards for terms of two years, the recorder, municipal judge and 12 supervisors, to act as a county board, are also chosen by popular vote. Pop. 37,816.