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 6o 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 1952, 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 .