1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Easton

EASTON, a city and the county-seat of Northampton county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., at the confluence of the Lehigh river and Bushkill Creek with the Delaware, about 60 m. N. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1890) 14,481; (1900) 25,238, of whom 2135 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 28,523. Easton is served by the Central of New Jersey, the Lehigh Valley, the Lehigh & Hudson River and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railways, and is connected by canals with the anthracite coal region to the north-west and with Bristol, Pa. A bridge across the Delaware river connects it with Phillipsburg, New Jersey, which is served by the Pennsylvania railway. The city is built on rolling ground, commanding pleasant views of hill and river scenery. Many fine residences overlook city and country from the hillsides, and a Carnegie library is prominent among the public buildings. Lafayette College, a Presbyterian institution opened in 1832, is finely situated on a bluff north of the Bushkill and Delaware. The college provides the following courses of instruction: graduate, classical, Latin scientific, general scientific, civil engineering, electrical engineering, mining engineering and chemical; in 1908 it had 38 instructors and 442 students, 256 of whom were enrolled in the scientific and engineering courses. Overlooking the Bushkill is the Easton Cemetery, in which is the grave of George Taylor (1716–1781), a signer of the Declaration of Independence, with a monument of Italian marble to his memory. Among the city’s manufactures are silk, hosiery and knit goods, flour, malt liquors, brick, tile, drills, lumber and planing mill products and organs; in 1905 the value of all the factory products was $5,654,594, of which $2,290,598, or 40·5%, was the value of the silk manufactures. Easton is the commercial centre of an important mining region, which produces, in particular, iron ore, soapstone, cement, slate and building stone. The municipality owns and operates an electric-lighting plant. Easton was a garden spot of the Indians, and here, because they would not negotiate elsewhere, several important treaties were made between 1756 and 1762 during the French and Indian War. The place was laid out in 1752, and was made the county-seat of the newly erected county. It was incorporated as a borough in 1789, received a new borough charter in 1823, and in 1887 was chartered as a city. South Easton was annexed in 1898.