Boxwood Hall is located east of downtown Elizabeth, on the north side of East Jersey Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Morrell Street. It is a two-story wood-frame structure with a shingled exterior and brick end chimneys. The house has a symmetrical five-bay facade, with a tripartite
Palladian window above the center entrance. In its original configuration (ca. 1750) the house had two wings bringing the number of rooms to eighteen. The main block is a classic four-over-four center hall construction. The property has had many owners and uses in its 250-plus years. Originally it was built by Samuel Woodruff, a merchant and onetime mayor of Elizabethtown. After Woodruff's death in 1768, it passed to his son, but was eventually sold at public auction to
Elias Boudinot in 1772. Boudinot lived here with his wife Hannah Stockton Boudinot and their two daughters and also offered shelter to the teen-aged
Alexander Hamilton who was studying at the
Elizabethtown Academy. The Boudinots remained in the house until the outbreak of the Revolution, when for safety reasons Hannah moved to a family property in
Basking Ridge, NJ, and Elias assumed his duties as Commissary General for the Continental armies. It is currently not known how the house was used during the war. In 1783, the Boudinots returned to their mansion and remained there until selling it in 1795 to
Jonathan Dayton, then a Congressman. Dayton and his wife Susan, son Elias Jonathan and daughter Hannah moved into the house in 1795. Soon after, Dayton redecorated the front two rooms on the main floor, installing an
Adamesque mantelpiece in the East parlor and a Federal mantelpiece in the West parlor. The financial reversal that was caused by his association with
Aaron Burr and by extension with the
Burr Conspiracy forced Dayton to sell the mansion to his son-in-law Dr. Oliver Hetfield Spencer while retaining life-rights for the remainder of his and Susan's lives. ==Modern status==