RAHWAY, New Jersey – The History of My Hometown

FROM LENAPE HOMELAND TO SPANKTOWN TO A CRADLE OF AMERICAN IDENTITY

How one small New Jersey town shaped the Revolution, early industry, and the very first American penny

By  Charles Knight

Long before Rahway became a quiet suburban community 12 miles from New York City, it was the homeland of the Lenape Indians, then a booming colonial village called Spanktown, and later a Revolutionary battleground and industrial powerhouse. This is the forgotten story of how a small New Jersey town helped build a nation.

THE FIRST PEOPLE: THE LENAPE & CHIEF RAHWACK

Rahway’s story begins not with European settlers but with the Lenape, the Indigenous people who lived along the riverbanks, forests, and meadows of what is now Union County. Among their leaders was Chief Rahwack—also recorded as Rahwakin or Rahwagh—whose name would echo through centuries.

When English settlers arrived, they negotiated with Rahwack for permission to build farms and villages. Yet the Lenape worldview differed profoundly from the English approach:

• The Lenape did not believe land could be owned.
• The English believed land was a deeded commodity.

To the Lenape, land was a sacred, shared inheritance—never a possession—but they defended it fiercely. The settlers named the river, and eventually the town, after Rahwack, giving us Rahway.

SPANKTOWN: A NAME BORN OF CRAFTSMANSHIP

Before Rahway was Rahway, it was widely known as Spanktown.

The most compelling theory behind the name is rooted in the town’s early industries—tanning and carriage making. Leatherworkers softened hides by striking them rhythmically with wooden paddles, a process known as “spanking the leather.”

The steady thud of leather being worked echoed across the Rahway River, so travelers on the King’s Highway joked they were entering “the town where they spank the leather.”

What began as a description became an identity: Spanktown.

A TOWN BETWEEN EMPIRES: RAHWAY IN THE REVOLUTION

By the 1770s, Spanktown sat at a strategic choke point between British-held Staten Island and New Brunswick, and Washington’s Continental forces inland. The King’s Highway (currently St. George Avenue)—America’s most important colonial road—ran straight through my hometown.

Rahway became a place of:

• secret meetings
• skirmishes
• intelligence exchanges
• militia musters
• dangerous neutrality

Ordinary families lived under extraordinary pressure as the Revolution moved through their fields.

THE BATTLE OF SPANKTOWN — FEBRUARY 23, 1777

In the dead of winter, when the Revolution hung by a thread, one of the war’s most overlooked yet consequential engagements erupted on the frozen fields of Rahway. On February 23, 1777, Continental forces under General William Maxwell collided with British and Hessian troops in a sharp, running battle that tore across roads, farms, and river crossings throughout Spanktown.

What began as a skirmish quickly escalated into a determined stand. Maxwell’s men drove the enemy back toward Amboy, halting a planned British raid intended to seize food, livestock, and supplies that Washington desperately needed to sustain his army at Morristown.

It was a small battle by the standards of the age—yet its impact was immense:

• It restored morale during one of the darkest winters of the war.
• It protected Rahway’s families and farms from destruction.
• It safeguarded vital supply routes that kept the Continental Army alive.
• It proved that American resistance remained unbroken, even in hardship.

“In Rahway, the fight for freedom was not theoretical—it was fought on frozen ground.”

MINTING A MOTTO: RAHWAY AND THE BIRTH OF “E PLURIBUS UNUM”

After independence, Rahway quietly entered another chapter of national significance. In the mid-1780s, a private mint in the town produced some of the earliest American coins ever struck, including versions of what numismatists now recognize as the first American penny—the New Jersey Coppers.

Using hand-operated screw presses, local craftsmen stamped copper blanks with bold imagery of liberty, state pride, and the promise of a united republic. Among these designs appeared one of the earliest uses of the phrase “E Pluribus Unum”—Out of Many, One—a motto that would become central to America’s identity. These Rahway-struck coins circulated widely across the new nation, stabilizing trade at a time when official U.S. currency was scarce.

Rahway’s early minting represented far more than coinage.
It embodied sovereignty, self-determination, and the forging of a national motto that still defines the United States today.

THE CARRIAGE-MAKING CAPITAL OF NEW JERSEY

By the early 1800s, Rahway had become one of the most respected carriage-manufacturing centers in the northeastern United States. What began as small family workshops along the Rahway River before the war grew into a nationally recognized industry, with dozens of factories and artisan shops turning out an impressive range of vehicles:

• elegant coaches for prosperous families
• merchant wagons essential to trade and commerce
• winter sleighs for travel across frozen roads
• doctor’s carriages designed for speed and reliability
• expert tack and leatherwork that set regional quality standards

Rahway’s craftsmanship was legendary. Its makers combined skilled wheelwrights, blacksmiths, woodworkers, painters, leatherworkers, and upholsterers—each trade contributing to a final product that was admired from New York to Philadelphia and beyond.

Long before Detroit ever manufactured an automobile, Rahway built the vehicles that carried America into the 19th century. Its output, reputation, and the ingenuity of its workers earned Rahway an enviable distinction in the era’s industrial press:

“The Carriage City of the World.”

CLOSER — E PLURIBUS UNUM: OUT OF MANY, ONE

From its Lenape beginnings to leather shops and mint presses, from Revolutionary battlegrounds to bustling carriage factories, the story of Rahway mirrors the story of America itself. It is a place shaped by many peoples, many trades, and many beliefs—woven together over centuries into a single, distinctly American identity.

For those who grew up here, as I did, Rahway is more than a point on a map.
It is a legacy.
A testament to resilience, craftsmanship, courage, and community.
A reminder that the nation we cherish was built not only in great cities and capitals, but in everyday places by everyday people—each contributing their piece to the promise of liberty.

Out of many stories, one town.
Out of many people, one nation.
E Pluribus Unum.

NOTES & REFERENCES

1. Chief Rahwack and the Lenape — Origin of the city name linked to Lenape leadership and early settlement agreements.
   Source: Rennamedia: “Rahway’s Name Is City’s Connection with the Original People.”
2. Lenape worldview and land use — The Lenni-Lenape belief in communal land stewardship.
   Source: Durand-Hedden House & Garden: “The Lenape Who Came Before Us.”
3. Town history and industrial growth — Rahway’s evolution from colonial settlement to manufacturing center.
   Source: City of Rahway – Official History Page.
4. New Jersey Coppers and early minting activity — Private mints in Rahway and Morristown producing early American coins.
   Source: Stack’s Bowers Numismatic Auctions: “New Jersey Coppers.”
5. Carriage manufacturing dominance — Rahway’s rise as a major 19th-century carriage-production hub.
   Source: City of Rahway – The Carriage City Historical Record.