was linked to farming
in surrounding towns
In earlier times, borough
was linked to farming
in surrounding towns
By dick metzgar
Staff Writer
The Village Inn at the corner of Main and Water streets in Englishtown is the borough’s most well-known landmark. It is pictured here prior to its restoration in the 1980s.
ENGLISHTOWN — Like other old historic urban centers in western Mon-mouth County, the borough can boast of an illustrious past, is enduring a challenging present and, hopefully, can look forward to a bright future.
Englishtown is one of three "holes-in-the-donut" boroughs in the region whose economic well-being has been jeopardized by surrounding developing townships whose suburbanization has threatened to turn these urban centers into ghost towns. The borough, with a population of 1,764, is completely surrounded by Manalapan.
The other two holes-in-the-donut communities are Freehold Borough, which is surrounded by Freehold Township, and Farmingdale, which is surrounded by Howell.
This is the first of a series of articles addressing the past, present and future of Englishtown. It will trace the town back to its earliest roots and will devote much attention to the first half of the 20th century, when Englishtown was a bustling business community.
The village of Englishtown can be traced back to the early 1700s, and was incorporated as Englishtown Borough in 1888, according to Manalapan and Englishtown, written by Richard J. Dalik, one of the Images of America series.
The town received its name from James English, a proprietor of the land and an original settler.
Englishtown was a commercial center for exporting farm products, while Manal-apan was the major farming community surrounding the borough. The farms played a major role in the development of Englishtown, which became a bustling trading and commercial center with grist mills, blacksmith shops and taverns.
The borough would continue in this role until after the end of World War II in 1945, when rapid residential and commercial development, along with the emergence of strip malls, would signal the end of the region as an agricultural community.
Taverns were the gathering spots for residents in the 18th century villages — and the Village Inn on Water Street was no exception. The inn has been restored in recent years.
The Village Inn, believed to have been built in the 1740s, was one of the places where local residents met to bemoan their lack of political freedom in pre-Revolutionary War days.
Gen. George Washington would make Englishtown his headquarters before, during and just after the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778.
A house on Main Street which was owned by well-known Englishtown merchant William E. Mount around the turn of the 20th century was visited by Washing-ton just before the battle.
According to the account of that visit gleaned from a 1903 edition of the Free-hold Transcript, the dwelling — or the main part of it — was constructed before the Revolutionary War and, at the time of the battle, was owned an occupied by Moses Laird and his wife, Elizabeth. Her maiden name was English.
Laird’s bother-in-law, Moses Sprowis, was an officer in the Revolutionary Army, and it was through the latter that Washing-ton made his headquarters in the Laird homestead.
It is said that Washington stayed overnight in the house and was entertained at a banquet just before the battle.
In the 1800s, Englishtown became a thriving railroad center because of its location in the agricultural region.
This would continue throughout the first half of the 20th century.
Monmouth County Freeholder Ted Narozanick, 82, of Freehold Borough, who was born and raised in Englishtown, recalled that the borough was a busy urban center while he was growing up in the 1920s and 1930s.
"Englishtown was a very popular place when I was growing up," Narozanick said. "We had a very busy Main Street in those days. The town was self-sustaining. We had a number of stores, barber shops, a bank, our own post office and everything else we needed to exist. People used to flock into town on Friday and Saturday nights."
Narozanick and a number of other young Englishtown men joined the U.S. Army in 1940. The freeholder said he noticed a change beginning to take place in his hometown when he returned after the end of World War II in 1945.
Narozanick opened a hardware store on Main Street in March 1946 and it would barely survive until 1954, when it was obvious that the old town was changing.
Narozanick would serve as a borough councilman for seven years, as mayor for 12 years and on the local school board for nine years.
However, he saw the handwriting on the wall as far as business in Englishtown was concerned and sought a new career. He went into public service, first on the state level and later at the county level.
"The town started to change after I returned from the war," Narozanick said. "The developers came into Manalapan, Route 9 became developed, and strip malls began to emerge in the area. Local merchants just didn’t have the capital to compete with them. Business became very bad."
It was the beginning of the end for Englishtown as a thriving urban agricultural center.