Loyalist "Manstealing" Peaks and the Rise of Colonel Tye

As noted in a prior article, "manstealing" in Monmouth County started in early 1780 when small parties of Loyalist raiders, outside the control of the British Army, began kidnapping Monmouth County local leaders. While militia officers were not the only men captured, Loyalist parties often targeted militia officers. Through the spring and summer of 1780, man-stealings, at minimum, resulted in the capture of ten militia officers—Lt. Colonel John Smock, Maj. Hendrick Van Brunt (taken a second time), Captains James Green, Barnes Smock, Jacob Covenhoven, Thomas Wainwright, and Lieutenants Thomas Cook (taken a third time), Thomas Little (taken a second time), James Walling, and James Wall.

The manstealings were so pervasive and feared that militia officers started resigning. On May 11, Thomas Wainwright, one of Shrewsbury Township’s captains, wrote Governor William Livingston:

My living here is uncertain and I find it is not in my power any longer to make my commission, I am threatened of being taken and carried to New York and can't rest quietly in my bed, I should be glad [if] your Excellency would favor me, as it is difficult for me to be active [while] living on the lines. I am not only in danger of being taken off any night by the Tories, but am in so poor a state of health that I am not able to undergo the hardships of being a soldier. If your Excellency would please to excuse me from serving, I shall take kindly… Our fighting men are most of them killed or taken prisoner. I shall, if not excused from serving, be under the necessity of leaving my family and retiring into the country, for if I should be taken and put in prison under my present state of health, I should not live long, and I have served my country at every call, whenever we had any prospect of dealing with them I took it upon a hardship to be enlisted, as I am the only officer left on the lines.

Wainwright’s resignation did not protect him; he was captured several weeks later.

In hindsight, it is apparent that the primary driver of manstealing was the rise of irregular Loyalist raiding parties that adopted kidnapping as their default activity. But, in the moment, some Monmouth County leaders blamed prisoner exchanges, and officers who arranged them (such as Colonel Asher Holmes), as the cause of manstealing. Exemplifying this point of view, David Forman called exchanges “replete with evil.” He argued that “with every exchange made, we give encouragement to that British mode of manstealing, once gone into, will always enable them to hold a large ball of prisoners against us."

In August, 1780, manstealing climaxed. Middletown’s most important Whig family, the Smocks, were particularly targeted. The New York Royal Gazette reported on August 23: “Yesterday were brought into this town a Colonel and Major Smock, of the Monmouth County militia, one of these was of the community of Associated Retaliators upon the Tories."  The New Jersey Gazette reported on the same incident, "Hendrick Smock, Esquire, and Lieut. Col. John Smock of Monmouth County, were lately made prisoners by a party of the enemy from Sandy Hook and carried to New York." The third senior member of the Smock family, Captain Barnes Smock, was taken two months earlier.

Colonel Tye: The Greatest Manstealer

As discussed in another article, Colonel Tye, likely the former Shrewsbury slave, Titus, was the most successful Loyalist irregular in Monmouth County’s local war. In summer of 1780, he led a group of African-American Loyalist irregulars based on Sandy Hook called the Black Brigade. Tye was their honorific Colonel. They conducted a string of raids into Monmouth County that included at least sixteen captures. The raids are summarized in table 10. 

In five documented raids over three months, Tye’s parties captured at least sixteen men. The captives included two men who served in the New Jersey Legislature (James Mott and Hendrick Smock), four militia officers (Lt. Col. John Smock, Capt. Barnes Smock, Lt. James Walling, Lt. James Wall) and Middletown’s Overseer of the Highways, Joseph Dorsett. Other Loyalist parties were concurrently taking captives, but no Loyalist irregular led as many raids or took as many prisoners as Tye.

Tacit British Approval of Manstealing

No surviving British document authorized manstealing. The British relationship with the Associated Loyalists (who conducted manstealing raids) was strained. The British relationship with Colonel Tye and his Black Brigade is undocumented and was likely never formalized. However, British officers saw the Loyalist raiding parties at Sandy Hook, and saw raiders selling their plunder in New York. British officers read the newspapers that reported the manstealing raids. There is no reason to believe the British restrained manstealing; they likely tacitly endorsed it.

Indeed, there is scattered evidence that the British countenanced manstealing. A September 10, 1781, order from the British Commander in Chief, Henry Clinton, to Lt. Thomas Okerson of the New Jersey Volunteers (formerly of Tinton Falls) appears to authorize the kidnapping of a Continental leader:

You are to proceed to Pennsylvania with the men under your Command and there carry into execution the plan proposed, after which you will return to this place by the most convenient route. Should there be a necessity for you to detail your men, you will give them direction [illegible words] you shall think they can stay with them till you return.

Clinton also apparently approved of a plan to send James Moody, also a junior officer in the New Jersey Volunteers, into New Jersey to kidnap Governor Livingston. Moody and a few thirty men landed in a disaffected neighborhood near the southern tip of Monmouth County. But Moody’s party was discovered, a few of his men were arrested, and the plot fell apart. While British commanders kept a distance from manstealing and left this dirty work for others, the best evidence suggests that they winked at the practice.

Tye was shot in the wrist during his late August raid and died shortly thereafter. Manstealing continued after Tye’s death, but tapered off in quantity. Monmouth County’s militia and state troops became steadier and a number of Loyalist raids—including the so-called Negro Hill Massacre—went badly for the Loyalists later in the war. Yet, even as the number of kidnappings ebbed, the practice stoked resentments in Monmouth County and pushed the county’s Whigs toward vigilante retaliation.

Related Historic Site: Prison Ship Martyr Monument

Sources: William S. Stryker, Official Register of the Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War (Trenton: Naar, Day & Naar, 1872); Thomas Wainwright to William Livingston, New Jersey State Archives, William Livingston Papers, reel 11, May 11, 1780; William Livingston to Joseph Reed, Carl Prince, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 3, p 433; David Forman to George Washington, Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, series 4, reel 68, July 12, 1780; New York Royal Gazette excerpted in William Horner, This Old Monmouth of Ours (Freehold: Moreau Brothers, 1932) p 137; Library of Congress, Early American Newspaper, New Jersey Gazette, reel 1930; Henry Clinton to Thomas Okerson, University of Michigan, William L. Clements Library, Sir Henry Clinton Papers, Volume 174, item 11; Richard Peters to William Livingston, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 4, p 327; Information on the captured Monmouth Countians is in Michael Adelberg, Biographical File, unpublished at the Monmouth County Historical Association Library.