Lewis Bestedo Kills Loyalist and Exposes Loyalist Outlaws

When the Upper Freehold Loyalist insurrection and other insurrections collapsed in January 1777, the less committed insurrectionists received amnesty in exchange for taking a loyalty oath to the New Jersey government. Among the more committed insurrectionists, 200+ were captured and jailed; at least as many others went to New York as Loyalist refugees and recruits into the Loyalist New Jersey Volunteers. And a few committed Loyalists went underground, living as outlaws in the thinly-populated cedar forests and salt marshes along the shore.

The best-documented of these Loyalist outlaw bands—numbering ten or fewer—went into the woods of southern Upper Freehold township in early 1777. These men, more or less led by Jesse Woodward, lived in modest hunting cabins for several weeks until the desire for revenge lured one member of the group, Nicholas Williams, to expose them and lose his life in the process.

Lewis Bestedo Kills and Captures Loyalist Outlaws

A devoted Whig (supporter of the Revolution), Lewis Bestedo, was the first man to run into the Loyalist outlaws. According to his deposition before the New Jersey Council of Safety:

On or about the 9th of April, as he, the deponent, was riding the public road between the dwelling house of Alexander Howard and Crosswicks, two men, namely Nicholas Williams and Thomas Fowler, who were till then concealed in the bushes, started up near the deponent, when said Williams said 'God Damn your blood, stop!' and immediately said Williams and Fowler both presented their guns at this deponent, who instantly alighted for his horse... That one or both said persons did fire directly at him, and that a ball discharged from one of the guns came so near his head that he thinks it brushed his hair. Upon which the deponent, having also a loaded gun in his hand, did immediately take aim and shot the said Nicholas Williams through the head... and then rushing toward the said Thomas Fowler, took him a prisoner, and conveyed him to Allentown, where he delivered him to Capt. [Francis] Wade.

The captured Loyalist, Fowler, was also deposed by Wade a Continental Army commissary officer, at Allentown:

He heard Nicholas Williams, who Lewis Bestedo shot this morning in his own defense, says that he would shoot Bestedo the first time he could do it, and as Bestedo was passing the road, going to Crosswicks from Allentown on his lawful business, sd Williams and Fowler lay in ambush along some brush on the road, & started up on sd Bestedo when sd Williams cried out to sd Bestedo 'Damn you, stop' & fired at sd Bestedo directly out of a loaded rifle, & on a missing, sd Bestedo, having a loaded musket with him on his horseback, immediately alighted & fired at sd Williams & shot him there in the head & took sd Thomas Fowler prisoner.

Fowler described that outlaw bands "kept in a cabin for two months past, near to Joshua Gibbs." Fowler lived near Williams and Samuel Woodward. “Jesse Woodward also lived in the woods with them in a cabin along Crosswicks Creek.” Jesse Woodward had encouraged Fowler and Williams to stay in hiding "as the regulars would soon return, when they would be at liberty to go where they pleased & that Little Anthony Woodward promised they would be rewarded." John McGinnis was also listed as one of the outlaws, but he remained living in the community. McGinnis had warned Fowler "not to betray him.”

With Fowler as an informant, Captain Wade was apparently able to capture Jesse Woodward, who he examined on April 10 at Allentown. Wade wrote of Woodward, "I find he is very backward in giving any information. You will find by his confession and Fowler's, that they differ much... it however plainly appears that there is a gang of them living in the pines and no doubt in readiness to show themselves whenever an opportunity offers.” Wade said he would write George Washington about the Loyalist outlaws in hiding. He also suggested that Bestedo should be allowed to keep the firearms of Fowler and Williams as a reward for his actions.

In his statement, Jesse Woodward admitted to disarming Whigs during the Loyalist insurrection the prior December under guidance from his cousin, Anthony Woodward, who was acting under order from the British Army. He then "went from his house last December into the Pines about ten miles from his house, and living in one of the cabins for about a week at a time, and sometimes went home, and removed to a cabin on Crosswick's Creek above Waln's Mill, where he has lived about three or four weeks past.” On Fowler and Williams, “he understood from his children they were under the same circumstances that he was.”

Fowler was brought before the New Jersey Council of Safety on April 11 and confessed that he, Samuel Woodward and Nicholas Williams went to Shrewsbury with plan to go off to Sandy Hook, but were turned back by a patrol. After the insurrection collapsed, Fowler went with Jesse Woodward to a cabin. Tedium in the woods may have prompted rash action. Fowler deposed that, “he has done no work for two months, but was persuaded that the regulars would make it all up to him if he lay still... was persuaded by sd Williams to go with him & assist him in taking Lewis Bestedo, whom he said he would carry to the Hook, when Bestedo returned the fire & shot Williams dead & took him prisoner."

Other Loyalist Outlaws Captured

With Jesse Woodward and Fowler captured and Williams dead, the Loyalist outlaws grew desperate. Thomas Woodward and Thomas Williams attempted to escape to New York. However, they were taken outside of New Brunswick on May 10 and brought before the Council of Safety on May 21:

This affirmant further saith that sd Williams did then and there undertake to conduct him, this affirmant, to the city of New Brunswick & that in pursuance thereof, they, this affirmant and sd Williams, did that night set off with a design to go to the said city & traveled nightly (laying still by day) until they arrived within a few miles of sd city, where they were both apprehended and made prisoners - This affirmant further saith that being himself a stranger to the country & roads through which they passed, he trusted himself  entirely to the guidance and direction of him, sd Williams, and that altho' there was no previous agreement between of reward, yet the sd Williams did immediately after their sd apprehension demand of him, the affirmant, the sum of two dollars for his services, which he paid to sd Williams.

Another member of the Loyalist gang, Giles Williams, was captured on May 19. Upper Freehold’s David Brearley, a Continental Army officer, sent him to Governor William Livingston, with the note:

Your Excellency will have delivered herewith a certain Giles Williams, who left this State last summer with Elisha Lawrence and others, and joined the Enemy on Staten Island; he has sometime past been lurking in the Pines with a set of villains, but was very luckily taken last night in the edge of the Pines by Lieut. Barton [Gilbert Barton] and sent to this place [Allentown].

It is interesting that Giles Williams was part of the first wave of Loyalist insurrectionaries who left Upper Freehold in July 1776 to join the New Jersey Volunteers under Lt. Colonel Elisha Lawrence. Williams apparently deserted the New Jersey Volunteers but remained a committed Loyalist. A number of Loyalists who became so-called Pine Robbers later in the war followed this same pattern.

The fate of the few remaining Loyalist outlaws in the Upper Freehold group is unknown; it is possible they remained outlaws and drifted into more violent outlaw activities. By the summer of 1778, and for the rest of the war, Loyalist outlaw gangs resided in the pine forests and salt marshes of coastal Monmouth County. These Pine Robbers terrorized locals and made large swaths of land largely ungovernable.

Historian David Fowler (no relation to Thomas Fowler) examined the Upper Freehold Loyalist outlaws and identified them as the starting point of the Pine Robber phenomenon. While this early Loyalist outlaw group was less violent than later outlaw gangs, Fowler’s hypothesis is instructive.

Related Historic Site: Nothnagle Log Cabin (early log home in New Jersey, but not representative of one-room hunting cabin)

Sources: Deposition of Lewis Bestedo, Carl Prince, Papers of William Livingston (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) vol. 1, pp. 306-7.New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, Thomas Fowler; Jesse Woodward’s Statement, taken by Francis Wade, Selections from the Correspondence of the Executive of New Jersey, From 1776 to 1786 (Newark, NJ: Newark Daily Advertiser, 1848) p 51-3; Confession of Thomas Fowler, New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, box 1, document #74; Deposition, New Jersey State Archives, Bureau of Archives of History, Council of Safety, Thomas Woodward; David Brearley to William Livingston, Selections from the Correspondence of the Executive of New Jersey, From 1776 to 1786 (Newark, NJ: Newark Daily Advertiser, 1848) pp. 60-1.