Elizabethtown is a village in
Hardin County,
Illinois, along the
Ohio River. The population was 348 at the 2000 census. It is the
county seat of
Hardin County. It the location of the
Rose Hotel, an Illinois state historic site built about 1830. The village of Elizabethtown was founded around the McFarland Tavern (1812), which was soon rebuilt as the Rose Hotel, the rebuilt hostelry is the oldest hotel in the state of Illinois. Elizabethtown was named after James McFarland's wife. The oldest Baptist church in Illinois is also located in Elizabethtown.