The Doan Gang―The Remarkable History of America's Most Notorious Loyalist Outlaws

Contrary to popular perception, the American Revolution was not a unanimously patriotic fight against British oppressors, but a bitter civil war, in which nearly half the population opposed the movement for independence. Loyalty to the British Crown took many forms, but no story better represents this conflict than that of the Doan Gang, a loose confederacy of men from various states who robbed tax collectors, militia payrolls, and county treasuries, and threatened to kidnap state officials. The core of the gang were members of the Doan family of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, lapsed members of the Quaker faith, a group whose pacifism irked the rebellious Whigs. No pacifists themselves, the Doans' first big exploit was the robbery of the Bucks County treasury when it was flush with tax funds intended to support the state government. In addition to robberies and other attacks, the Doans helped British prisoners of war escape through the lines in a system that prefigured the Underground Railroad. For more than a decade, the Doans threatened the governments of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and ranged as far west as the Ohio Valley. To respond to the Doans, Pennsylvania authorities revived the medieval English legal process of outlawry, which allowed accused criminals to be executed without trial, a principal repugnant and opposite to the core values that revolutionary leaders propounded. During the nineteenth century the Doans's exploits became sensationalized, with the gang appearing as handsome highwaymen who carried out outrageous crimes in the name of the king. In The Doan Gang: The Remarkable History of America's Most Notorious Loyalist Outlaws, Terry A. McNealy uses primary sources to cut through the fictional accounts and present an even more compelling history of this extraordinary story from the American Revolution.

Terry A. McNealy served for twenty-three years as librarian of the Bucks County Historical Society. He is author of Bucks County: An Illustrated History and has written extensively on area history for the society's publications and for magazines.