Elizabeth – Boxwood Hall and the Home for Aged Women
Geographic description
Boxwood Hall in Elizabeth appears on this postcard in an architectural form quite different from the historic house that survives today. The property stands on East Jersey Street near Catherine Street in Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey, at what is now 1073 East Jersey Street. The printed caption identifies the building as the “Old Ladies Home” and states that it was built about 1750.
The postcard shows a surprisingly complex group of structures, partly screened by a large mature tree dominating the foreground. A reddish-brown, wood-clad section with green shutters occupies the center of the view. To the right stands a taller and much more elaborate light-colored section, with arched windows, a raised entrance reached by steps, decorative woodwork and a mansard roof pierced by rounded dormers. Another section can be seen through the trees on the left.
This varied architectural appearance is one of the most historically valuable features of the postcard. The original Boxwood Hall was a two-story timber-frame Georgian house approximately five bays wide, with a central passage and a gabled roof. Major alterations were carried out in 1870. Earlier side wings were removed, a service wing was added, the original roof was taken off, and additional stories topped by a mansard roof radically changed the eighteenth-century appearance of the building. Several of these later features were still present when the postcard photograph was taken. They were removed during the 1942-1943 restoration intended to recover more of the house’s earlier form.
The dense foliage, shutters, stairs and contrasting building sections give the property the appearance of a large residential institution rather than a single eighteenth-century mansion. This corresponds closely to its function at the time: Boxwood Hall was then being used as a home for elderly women.
No pedestrians, vehicles or street activity are included in the composition. The photographer concentrated almost entirely on the building and its landscaped surroundings. The hand-colored treatment, emphasizing reddish walls, green shutters, pale masonry and abundant foliage, creates the picturesque appearance associated with many American postcards of the early twentieth century.
Historical description
Boxwood Hall was built around 1750. Elias Boudinot purchased the property from Samuel Woodruff in 1772 and lived there until 1795. Boudinot played several significant public roles during and after the American Revolution, including serving as President of the Continental Congress in 1782-1783. Visitors to the house over the years included Alexander Hamilton, the Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington.
The event specifically mentioned in the postcard’s lower caption took place on April 23, 1789. George Washington was travelling through New Jersey on his way to New York City for his first presidential inauguration. At Elizabethtown he stopped at Elias Boudinot’s home and dined with Boudinot and members of the congressional committee accompanying him. Washington then continued from Elizabethtown Point toward New York in a specially prepared barge. The postcard summarizes this episode by stating that Washington was “entertained” at Boxwood Hall in 1789.
Boudinot sold the property in 1795 to Jonathan Dayton, the youngest signer of the United States Constitution. The house later passed through several different uses. During the nineteenth century it served for a period as a young ladies’ academy. Following major architectural alterations in the 1870s, it was also used as a boarding house. During the 1880s it became the Elizabeth Home for Aged Women, remaining associated with that institution for several decades.
The wording “Old Ladies Home” printed on the postcard reflects the terminology commonly used at the time. From a historical perspective, the image is especially important because it records Boxwood Hall during this institutional phase rather than in the restored eighteenth-century appearance familiar today.
An identical issue of this postcard is documented with an Elizabeth postmark dated September 2, 1919 and identifies Line & Co. of Elizabeth, New Jersey, as its publisher. This provides strong evidence for dating this postcard issue to around the late 1910s. The appearance of the building is fully consistent with that period, since the nineteenth-century alterations had not yet been removed.
By the late 1930s, Boxwood Hall faced demolition. Local preservation efforts led to the purchase of the property and its transfer to the State of New Jersey. Restoration work undertaken in 1942-1943 removed major nineteenth-century alterations, including the extra stories and mansard-roof configuration. The property subsequently became a historic house museum. The postcard therefore preserves something that can no longer be seen on the site: Boxwood Hall during a transitional architectural and social chapter of its long history.
