The Rise of John Bacon's Pine Robber Gang

As noted in prior articles, Dover and Stafford townships in southern Monmouth County (and bordering Little Egg Harbor Township in Burlington County) was New Jersey’s most disaffected region during the second half of the Revolutionary War. The region was not well-suited for farming (the main path to acquiring wealth in 1700s America), so shore residents lived modestly by grazing small herds and practicing maritime trades. Shore residents were two days removed on horseback from their county seats in Freehold and Burlington. The culture of the region was rough: a Quaker elder complained that shore residents were “loose, libertine people;” they referred to “places of deviation” along the shore.

The Revolutionary War brought unprecedented capital and opportunity to acquire wealth to shore residents. Salt works sprung up and they were in constant need of laborers, but salt work owners constantly complained of laborers stealing their materials and then disappearing. Privateers from New England and Philadelphia employed some shore residents, and purchased supplies from others—but the opportunities created by privateers were transient. Though they brought money to a poor region, resentments toward these outsiders, no doubt, ran high.

For shore residents, the most lucrative opportunity created by the Revolutionary War was the so-called London Trade. London Traders funneled the foodstuffs and lumber from disaffected New Jersey farmers to British buyers at Sandy Hook and New York. The wealth generated by this trade, coupled with long-simmering resentments from the shore region, bred gangs of Pine Robbers. By 1781, the Pine Robbers gangs of the lower shore numbered as many as 80 men, supported by armed London Trading vessels and disaffected locals who provided cover and supplies. Local militias lacked the power to depose these gangs, and George Washington, chastened by the poor record of Continentals previously stationed along the shore, refused to send troops.

The Rise of John Bacon

From this setting emerged John Bacon, the most prolific of the Pine Robber leaders. According to an antiquarian account, Bacon hailed from Arneytown, a center for disaffection in Upper Freehold Township. (Since Bacon is buried in Arneytown, there’s reason to think he had family there.) An antiquarian source claims that Bacon was an agricultural laborer to the Crane family of Stafford Township before the war. The Cranes supported the Revolution and would clash with Bacon’s gang later in the war. Further evidence that Bacon lived in Stafford Township is provided in court testimony from Luke Sooey, who stated that: “He knew Bacon before he went to the enemy - his family resides at Barnegat - thinks Bacon has been with the enemy between two & three years."

David Fowler, who comprehensively studied the Pine Robbers, located Bacon in court documents early in the war. He was listed as a “shingle-maker” in a Monmouth County court document, meaning he was employed in repetitive and hard manual labor. Bacon also apparently ignored more than one court summons regarding a dispute with the Soper family, and was a claimant in a 1779 privateer case involving the capture of the vessel, Success. Fowler notes an antiquarian source which claims that Bacon was married and his wife, Hannah Bacon, lived apart from her husband in Burlington County.

Bacon did not start the war as a violent outlaw. An antiquarian source describes an early incident in which Bacon refrained from violence. James Wells (who lived near Waretown) was a Quaker. He left his house in the uniform coat of a Continental soldier which had been left at his house (probably by one of Kasimir Pulaski’s troops). Pulaski’s Legion marched through Stafford Township in October 1778 during which time disaffected locals took sniper shots at them. Bacon saw a man in a Continental coat and closed in to shoot him until he recognized Wells. Bacon warned Wells not to wear the coat again. Fowler also notes that Bacon was indicted in the Monmouth County Courts in July 1780 for going to New York without a passport—by this time, Bacon had likely given up manual labor for a more lucrative living as a London Trader.

The first violent event attributed to Bacon was the killing of Lieutenant Joshua Studson in December 1780. Studson was patrolling the bay waters near Toms River in a militia boat when he spotted a London Trading vessel. He hailed the vessel and came close. As the militia closed in, Bacon, who was reportedly concealed with the cargo, rose and fired on Studson, who was killed nearly instantly. Bacon leapt into the shallow water and waded to shore. The panicked militia did not pursue him.

In May 1781, Bacon was in a gang that plundered the home of Captain Samuel Bigelow of Dover Township. Elenoar Bigelow later testified that the gang knocked down her door, rifled through the family goods, and carried off valuables. She did not know most of the men in the party but recognized Bacon, “a noted person of the Refugees at Egg Harbour.” Bacon was also named in the robbery of five horses from John Middleton, Jr., as the horses were being driven by a man named John Morris (not the Loyalist officer of the same name). Morris testified that the horses were taken by the “noted Refugee” John Bacon and presumably taken to New York.

Bacon and his gang participated in several additional robberies against the homes of Whigs (supporters of the Revolution). A Stafford Township militiaman, Seth Crane, was wounded while attempting to defend his home. Other robbery victims from Dover and Stafford townships include:

• Silas Crane of Stafford Twp.: Shot in leg while escaping Bacon’s gang as it approached his home (another source claims Crane was shot through a window while in his home); Crane was wounded again in a skirmish with Bacon’s gang described below.

• John Holmes of Forked River: home plundered of "a large amount of money, a silver watch, gold ring, silver buckles, pistols, clothing, etc.", some valuables buried in the yard were not taken.

• Lieutenant Jacob Lane of Dover Twp.: Robbed, described by Lane below:

His house was once attacked by one Captain John Bacon, a refugee, and his house was plundered and he was taken prisoner and carried over with them - that they oft swore after to let the deponent go, that they first robbed him of his Lieutenant's commission & Bacon sent word to the Governor that he had it.

• Captain John Price and Wiliam Price of Good Luck: John Price escapes with only his clothes and his commission; gang moves to nearby home of William Price, both homes robbed.

• Captain Reuben Randolph of Manahawkin: captured, pulled out of his house and tied to a tree in the woods, while a gang is plundering his house, he escapes.

• Joseph Soper of Stafford Twp.: Robbed of money paid for building a boat; other valuables buried in yard and not taken.

Fowler notes that Bacon’s robberies were not random. He targeted Whigs (supporters of the Revolution) and relied on informers, including William Wilson, to know when to strike at the homes of his adversaries.

John Bacon as a Notorious Outlaw

By the end of 1781, Bacon was leading a Pine Robber gang. He was a frequent target of local militias, but his gangs were large and cunning enough to hold their own against militia parties. John Chamberlain of Dover Township described his many encounters with Bacon’s gang in his postwar veteran’s militia application. He recalled that he went “in pursuit of the Refugees, I recollect helping to destroy a large row boat, building in the pines, by one Bacon, a leading character amongst the Refugees." Chamberlain recalled Bacon’s revenge and the Dover militia’s counter-measure:

I recollect having been robbed once, and taken prisoner twice by the above named Bacon, I also recollect having taken a refugee boat whilst under the command of John Stout, at Manasquan Inlet, making prisoner of her crew, consisting of five men and a boy.

On December 30, 1781, Stafford Township militia commanded by Reuben Randolph attempted to ambush and capture Bacon near Manahawkin (where Randolph lived). The militia spent the night at Randolph's tavern and it is easy to imagine that the men had too much to drink. At dawn, a militia sentry spotted Bacon’s gang on the road. Bacon’s men fired on a sentry, Linus Pangburn, and killed him. Pangburn's widow would later testify, her husband “was shot dead as he stood on guard by a party of refugees.” Believing Bacon’s party to be thirty to forty men, the smaller militia party (likely 20-25 men) fired on the Pine Robbers and then fled. Bacon’s men fired on them—and killed a man named Soper.

Two other militiamen were wounded in the skirmish. Sylvester Tilton was “severely” wounded based on one account. After the war, Tilton would have revenge against a man named Brewer in Bacon’s party. According to Fowler, Tilton inflicted an “unmerciful beating” on Brewer. Silas Crane would write of being wounded in the same skirmish in his postwar veteran’s pension application: “They had an engagement with the British and refugees under Capt. Bacon at Manahawkin… He received a severe wound to the thigh which disabled him for several months and which scar he carries to his grave."

Bacon was now a notorious outlaw—perhaps the most notorious man in all of New Jersey. He was indicted for high treason in the Monmouth County Courts. Bacon was apparently captured in February 1782. Monmouth County’s Sheriff, John Burrowes, was ordered to secure him: “You are hereby commanded to receive into your custody the body of John Bacon, safely held, close confined in irons, to answer several charges of high treason, mischief and horse stealing, as stands accused.” When Bacon was transferred, a second order to Burrowes, from Judge David Forman, directed the sheriff to "safely keep him close, confined in irons to answer charges of High Treason, murder and horse stealing." However, Bacon escaped (details unknown) and was leading his gang again by summer.

Bacon’s later exploits and most infamous attack are discussed in another article.

A Note on John Bacon and William Davenport

Another large Pine Robber gang—reportedly 70-80 men—operated in the same region in 1782. It was led by William Davenport and reportedly had a base on Osburn’s Island—a peninsula of land north of the mouth of the Mullica River. Surviving documents do not reveal the relationship between Bacon and Davenport. Perhaps they were rivals operating gangs fully independent of each other; perhaps they were allies collegially pulling from the same pool of men. However, after Davenport was killed by militia at Forked River in June 1782, Bacon was the last Pine Robber commanding a body of men large enough to face down militia parties.

Perhaps Bacon was made more desperate by Davenport’s death and the tide of the war. In May 1782, the British blocked the Associated Loyalists from raiding into New Jersey. With this move, it became easier for local militia to devote resources to combatting the Pine Robbers. This may have nudged Bacon, in his galley Hero’s Revenge, toward more ruthless acts. The surprise and slaughter of a militia party on the southern side of Barnegat Inlet in October 1782, the so-called Long Beach Massacre, was the bloodiest action taken by Bacon or any Pine Robber during the war. It is the subject of another article, as is the death of Bacon in 1783.

Related Historic Site: Stafford Township Historical Society

Sources: David Fowler, Egregious Villains, Wood Rangers, and London Traders (Ph.D. Dissertation: Rutgers University, 1987) p 240-251; Testimony of Luke Sooey, Library of Congress, Revolutionary War Prize Cases, M162, reel 1, cases 91-2, David Forman v. Nathan Jackson; David Fowler, Price vs. The Sloop Success, Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey, 2005–Jan., vol. 80 n 1, 10–16; Edwin Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (Bayonne, NJ: E. Gardner and Sons, 1890) p 64, 214-5; National Archives, Revolutionary War Veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - Silas Crane; Edwin Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (Bayonne, NJ: E. Gardner and Sons, 1890) p 207;

Edwin Salter, Old Times in Old Monmouth (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1970) p 45; William Fischer, Biographical Cyclopedia of Ocean County (Philadelphia: A.D. Smith, 1899) pp. 60; David Fowler, Egregious Villains, Wood Rangers, and London Traders (Ph.D. Dissertation: Rutgers University, 1987) p 246; Edwin Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (Bayonne, NJ: E. Gardner and Sons, 1890) p 317; Alfred Heston, South Jersey: A History 1664-1923 (Lewis Historical Publishing, 1923) p 242; National Archives, revolutionary War veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - Jacob Lane; National Archives, revolutionary War veterans Pension Applications, New Jersey - John Chamberlain; Mittimus, New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives and History, Manuscript Collection, Manuscripts, box 27, #27; David Fowler, Egregious Villains, Wood Rangers, and London Traders (Ph.D. Dissertation: Rutgers University, 1987) p 252.