Elizabeth

Variant name of place

Elizabethtown; Elisabeth Town; Elisabethtown

Geographic position

40.6639° N, 74.2111° W

Sources

http://www.elizabethnj.org/about/founding-elizabeth, http://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/28/realestate/if-you-re-thinking-of-living-in-elizabeth.html

General note

Located just northwest of Staten Island, Elizabeth, New Jersey, was originally called Elizabethtown. Richard Nicolls, governor of the territories of North America, gave permission to John Bailey, Daniel Denton, and Luke Watson to purchase 500,000 acres from the Indians of Staten Island in 1664; however, the whole of New Jersey had been conveyed to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, who commissioned his relative Philip Carteret to be governor. Governor Carteret established Elizabethtown, named after George Carteret’s wife, as the capital of the province of New Jersey. In 1855 the legislature of New Jersey officially established this land as the City of Elizabeth. Josiah Wolcott wrote a letter from Elizabethtown to Eleazar Wheelock asking to enroll his son into Wheelock’s school.