On March 5, 1779, George Washington ordered a Continental Army court-martial to reconvene three days later at the Red Lion Inn, Samuel Smith's tavern and lodging house at 11 South Broad Street in Elizabethtown. The British raid of January 25, 1780 burned nearby Elizabethtown buildings, but the inn survived. On April 23, 1789, Washington stopped there again on his way to his inauguration.
The building is gone. After the inn was torn down, Carnegie funding helped build the Elizabeth Public Library on the same lot. At 11 a.m. on Saturday, October 17, the restored Red Lion Inn sign will be unveiled publicly on the library's front lawn to mark where the tavern stood.
The unveiling is part of Union County's Four Centuries in a Weekend. The county program says it runs Saturday and Sunday, but Elizabeth's part of it is mostly a Saturday event.
Two Downtown Stops Are Open Saturday Only
The county frames the event as two days. More than 30 historic sites across Union County open free from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday, October 17 and Sunday, October 18, unless a site lists something different. The county also points out that hours vary and some sites are open only one of the two days.
Elizabeth's Broad Street stops are among those exceptions. The 2026 activity guide marks both of them "Open Saturday only | Closed Sunday":
- Elizabeth Public Library, 11 S. Broad St. The guide calls it the last remaining active Carnegie library in Union County. It opened in 1912.
- Siloam-Hope First Presbyterian Church & Snyder Academy, 42 Broad St. This site runs the historic cemetery tours.
The two East Jersey Street houses carry no Saturday-only label in the guide. That splits the city's sites into a downtown group you can only see Saturday and a pair of houses that follow the county's general hours. If you can only go one day, go Saturday.
A Saturday Schedule Built Around Fixed Times
Most of the day runs noon to 5 p.m., but three things happen at set times, and two of them come before noon. That gives the day a natural order:
- 10 a.m. First cemetery tour at Siloam-Hope First Presbyterian Church, 42 Broad St.
- 11 a.m. Red Lion Inn sign unveiling on the library's front lawn, 11 S. Broad St.
- Noon to 5 p.m. The historic church and Snyder Academy open to visitors.
- 1 p.m. Second cemetery tour, for anyone who missed the first.
- Afternoon. Boxwood Hall and the Belcher-Ogden Mansion on East Jersey Street, both inside the county's noon-to-5 window.
Two separate cemetery tours mean the 11 a.m. unveiling never conflicts with the Broad Street stop. You can take the 10 a.m. tour and go straight to the library, or see the sign first and come back for the 1 p.m. tour.
The library's third floor goes deeper than the sign
The sign marks the spot. The exhibit inside explains it. "The Red Lion Inn & Elizabeth's Libraries" is on the library's third floor and uses images, documents, brochures and interpretive materials to show how the inn's history connects to the founding of the Elizabeth Public Library. The materials come from the library's Local History & Special Collections Department. A 250th Anniversary Special Project Grant from the Union County Board of County Commissioners helped pay for the exhibit.
You don't have to see it on October 17. The exhibit is free and open October 2 through 31, 9:30 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. If you want time with the documents, a quiet weekday visit is an option, and Saturday can go to the sites that are only open that day.
Broad Street: the cemetery, the church and Snyder Academy
The 42 Broad St. site is set up for visitors who need accessible routes. The church has a ramp entrance, an elevator takes visitors into Snyder Academy from Caldwell Avenue, and the cemetery has a walking path. Snyder Academy usually opens on weekends by appointment only, so a walk-in weekend day is unusual.
East Jersey Street: Boxwood Hall and the Belcher-Ogden Mansion
Boxwood Hall State Historic Site, at 1073 E. Jersey St., will run guided tours about the people and events tied to the house: Hamilton, Dayton, Lafayette, and Washington's inauguration day, when he dined there. The house will also show "Before the Semiquincentennial," an exhibit of artifacts from earlier celebrations of milestones in U.S. history. That links Washington's 1789 inauguration trip to two stops in one afternoon: he stopped at the Red Lion and dined at Boxwood Hall. Sources disagree on what he did at the inn, so "stopped" is the safe word for that part of the trip.
The Belcher-Ogden Mansion & Bonnell Homestead, at 1046 E. Jersey St., will give tours of the mansion in English and Spanish. The building is not wheelchair-accessible. Call 908-581-7555 with questions about specific accessibility needs.
Parking for a Multi-Stop Day
Read the guide's parking notes before you leave home, because the library lot is only for the library. Its free, secure lot is entered from Rahway Avenue or South Broad Street. If you're also visiting other Elizabeth sites, you have to move your car out of the library lot. The guide sends extra visitor parking to the Bollwage Garage on Caldwell Place.
Parking at the other stops:
| Stop | Address | Parking per the 2026 guide |
|---|---|---|
| Elizabeth Public Library | 11 S. Broad St. | On-site lot, library visits only |
| Church & Snyder Academy | 42 Broad St. | Street parking or garages at 37 Caldwell Place and 1167 Dickinson Street |
| Boxwood Hall | 1073 E. Jersey St. | Lot behind the building or street parking |
| Belcher-Ogden Mansion | 1046 E. Jersey St. | Free on-site parking at Bonnell House, 1045 E. Jersey St. |
Every participating site hands out a free Union County History Passport to stamp at each stop, plus collectible Union County History Trading Cards. The county says there are more than 80 cards. Four Elizabeth stops in one day fill a good part of a passport.
The Same Weekend Brings Back Descendants of Elizabeth's Founding Families
Those Saturday stops overlap with the Old First Cemetery Descendants Reunion, which TAPinto Elizabeth reported on October 2 as part of the city's 250th anniversary celebrations. The schedule runs October 15 through 19. On Saturday, October 17, reunion attendees take a "4 Centuries in a Weekend" historic tour with stops at Old First Cemetery, Snyder Academy, Boxwood Hall, and Liberty Hall/Belcher-Ogden Mansion.
The listed attendees include Nancy Benz, a Crane family descendant; Danny and Patty Woodruff of the Woodruff family; Jocelyn Francis-White of the Vanderpeer family; Pamela Witt Thomas of the Ogden family; Bob Gula of the Harriman and Whitwood families; and Gregory Caldwell Beier, a descendant of Rev. James Caldwell.
The report doesn't say whether the reunion's own events are open to the public. Questions go to [email protected]. The county's free Saturday program covers the same ground on its own schedule, with cemetery tours at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.
If You Can Only Go Sunday
Sunday is limited in Elizabeth itself. Boxwood Hall and the Belcher-Ogden Mansion have no Saturday-only label, so the county's general noon-to-5 hours apply. Call ahead to confirm. Liberty Hall Museum, at 1003 Morris Avenue in Union Township, is also a Four Centuries site. On Sunday, October 18, from 1 to 2 p.m., it holds "Bearing Witness: Uncovering the Enslaved of Liberty Hall." Reservations are encouraged. On a regular day, Liberty Hall tours run Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
For the rest of the month, you have two self-guided options. The Historic Heartline is a 3.5-mile walk through Midtown, with site descriptions you pull up by scanning QR codes on your phone. The Elizabeth Station Welcome Center is at 14 Julian Place, inside the historic Broad Street Clock Tower station. It's open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For tour inquiries, call 908-355-7600, ext. 107. The Red Lion exhibit stays up on the library's third floor through October 31.
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