Lt. Joshua Studson Killed by John Bacon

Joshua Studson was a boatman of modest standing at Toms River before the war. He lived on a 23-acre plot of land (too small for a family farm) with his wife, Mary Studson, and a single head of livestock. Despite his modest standing, he was selected sergeant in the first Dover Township militia loyal to the Provincial and Continental Congresses. His selection as sergeant was likely the result of having strong anti-British views in a neighborhood where many men had pro-British sympathies. By 1777, Studson was a lieutenant in the militia. His boat was a small vessel named Alligator and it was used for militia duty.

In May 1778, Alligator, led by Studson, rowed past Sandy Hook and captured a small schooner lying near the Roebuck, a British frigate and the guardship at Sandy Hook. The Toms River men took the prize into Matawan Creek. The reprisal was swift—a British-Loyalist party landed at Middletown Point, scattered the Middletown militia, burned much of the village, and then burned Studson’s boat. The Toms River men had to walk home—40 miles.

The loss of his vessel did not dampen Studson’s zealous support of the Revolution. In 1780, Studson joined the vigilante Whigs of the Association for Retaliation, petitioned for a State Troop guard at Toms River, and then was appointed a recruiter for that guard when the New Jersey Legislature authorized it. Studson was elected Dover Township’s Surveyor of the Highways, demonstrating he was ascending in status. This occurred even as Dover’s voters elected disaffected men to other offices.

Joshua Studson as a Privateer

Concurrent to all of this activity, Studson was at sea again, but now as a privateer. According to John Field, a privateer and militiaman, Studson commanded a Philadelphia brig, Hornet, for three months. During that time, Hornet was nearly taken by a larger British vessel:

He volunteered and served the full term of three months on the ocean. The vessel in which he served was a brig called the Hornet, commanded by Capt Studson, John Dillon was the first mate, and the name of the second mate was Thomas Smith. The vessel was a Privateer. This declarant embarked at Philadelphia – our Brig stood out to sea and continued cruising on the ocean for about one month when she came in contest with a British man-of-war and was chased by her for nearly three days and was finally driven into a small inlet called Tom’s River he thinks.

Studson’s fortunes soon improved.

A short time after the British vessel had departed, we again stood out to sea and after sailing about for some time, we came across a British merchant vessel on her voyage from the West Indies: We attacked her- after firing one gun she struck [struck her colors, surrendered], and we conducted her into Tom’s River aforesaid.

On August 18, 1780, Studson was listed as the master of the privateer vessel, Dolphin, a “Pennsylvania Boat” mounting one swivel gun (a small cannon on a turret) with a crew of fourteen. The vessel was owned by Samuel Brown (Studson’s militia captain), and Daniel Griggs of Toms River. Thomas Brown, Samuel’s son, was with Studson as they put to sea. In his postwar veterans’ pension application, he recalled taking a small brig off Barnegat with cargo of rum, molasses, and linen, which was brought into Toms River.

In November, Studson took two more vessels, the schooner John and the sloop Catherine, within sight of Sandy Hook. The prizes were taken to Middletown Point. On November 22, the New Jersey Gazette advertised that on December 1, at Freehold, “the sale of the sloop Catherine and the schooner John, as they now lay at Middletown Point, lately captured by Capt. Joshua Studson." The vessels were sold on December 1, but Studson never saw the proceeds.

The Death of Joshua Studson

On December 1, Studson was not in Freehold. He was leading a militia boat in Cranberry Inlet outside of Toms River. Studson saw a boat with three local disaffected men Asa Woodmancy, Richard Barber, and Thomas Collins entering the inlet. They were presumably returning from a London Trading trip to New York. The militia boat closed in on the London Traders and called for them to halt. As Studson prepared to board the trading boat, a fourth man in the London Trading vessel stood up (by some accounts, the fourth man was concealed). It was John Bacon, a Pine Robber. He shot and killed Studson at close range.

An 1858 newspaper described the event this way:

Arriving in the bay, Capt. Studson (Dec. 15, 1781) met them off the south-east point of Pelican Shoal, near Cranberry Inlet. Captain Studson bore down upon the sloop, and brought on the engagement by firing his nine pounder into her broadside. Woodmansee ordered his men to strike and himself cried for quarter, but the instant that Capt. Studson mounted the railing, Woodmansee caught a musket and shot him through the head, where upon Mr. John Wilbur, Acting Lieutenant, left the prize and returned to the village with the corpse of Capt. Studson.

This account well-illustrates the difficulties of over-relying on antiquarian sources. The account has the wrong year of the incident, it substantially overstates the size of Studson’s cannon, and it establishes Woodmancy as the killer of Studson, rather than John Bacon.

After killing Studson, the London Traders and Bacon escaped by jumping into the shallow water and fleeing on foot. Panicked and leaderless, the militia apparently did not pursue them. Some antiquarian accounts suggest that the London Traders were non-violent and Bacon acted on his own. Fearing retribution, the London Traders could not return home. An antiquarian account claims that one of the traders joined the New Jersey Volunteers, which, by this time, was an organization in decline. He caught smallpox, and nearly died.

The New Jersey Gazette noted Studson’s death in a brief statement on December 22: "Lieut. Joshua Studson of Monmouth was shot last week, as he was attempting to board a vessel of Toms River, supposed to be trading from New York to Egg Harbor." Bacon was soon indicted for waging war on the United States. He would participate in several other notorious events before meeting a bloody end in 1783.

On March 24, 1782, a large party of Associated Loyalists attacked Toms River, overwhelmed the guard of State Troops commanded by Captain Joshua Huddy, and razed the village. They spared only one home—the home of Mary Studson. Even vengeance-minded Loyalists showed a measure of mercy for Joshua Studson’s widow. But Mary did not prosper; she is listed in the 1783 tax rateables as owning eighteen acres with zero livestock.

Related Historic Site: Barnegat Bay Maritime Museum

Sources: Alfred Heston, South Jersey: A History 1664-1923 (Lewis Historical Publishing, 1923) p 238; National Archives, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 22, item 11, #172-6; David Fowler, egregious Villains, Wood Rangers, and London Traders (Ph.D. Dissertation: Rutgers University, 1987) p 240-2, 247-9; Heston, Alfred M. South Jersey, A History, 1664-1924 (New York: Lewis Historical Co., 1924) p 239; William Fischer, Biographical Cyclopedia of Ocean County (Philadelphia: A.D. Smith, 1899) p 53; Library of Congress, Early American Newspaper, New Jersey Gazette, reel 1930; Edwin Salter, History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties (Bayonne, NJ: E. Gardner and Sons, 1890) p 202; Edwin Salter, Old Tims in Old Monmouth (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1970) p 43-4; Archives of the State of New Jersey, Extracts from American Newspapers Relating to New Jersey (Paterson, NJ: Call Printing, 1903) vol. 5, p 145; Bacon indictment discussed in David Fowler, Egregious Villains, Wood Rangers, and London Traders (Ph.D. Dissertation: Rutgers University, 1987) p 246; The New Jersey Gazette advertisement of Studson’s prizes is in Archives of the State of New Jersey, Extracts from American Newspapers Relating to New Jersey (Paterson, NJ: Call Printing, 1903) vol. 5, pp. 122-5; John C. Dann, The Revolution Remembered: Eyewitness Accounts of the War for Independence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) pp 135-41; Alfred Heston, South Jersey: A History 1664-1923 (Lewis Historical Publishing, 1923) p 238; Thomas Brown’s pension narrative in, John C. Dann ed., The Revolution Remembered: Eyewitness Accounts of the War for Independence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) pp 137-9; National Archives, John Fields, S.8472, State of Ohio, Greene County National Archives, John Fields, S.8472, State of Ohio, Greene County; The Ocean Emblem, January 30, 1858.