The Patriot and the Pine Tree Robber: Captain Huddy and Colonel Tye, 1775-1782
Written by Robert A. Mayers
Chapter 10 from
Revolutionary New Jersey: Forgotten Towns and Crossroads of the American Revolution by Robert A. Mayers
Curiously, two incredible heroes of the American Revolution in New Jersey remain obscure in the history of their home state. Colonel Tye, a feared and respected guerrilla leader, was a slave who escaped and fought for the British. He became one of the most successful and dreaded Loyalist commanders of the Revolution. His adversary, Captain Joshua Huddy, was a devoted Patriot who led raids against the Loyalists and captured and executed their leaders. Both were known for their swashbuckling exploits in what was, in reality, a civil war in the shore area of the state. Tye grew up in bondage. Huddy was from a family of prosperous landowners. Tye was black. Huddy was white. Their paths were destined to cross, and on a fateful day in September 1780 one fatally shot the other.
Captain Joshua Huddy
Joshua Huddy was born November 8, 1735 to a wealthy Quaker family in Salem County. As a young adult he was often in trouble. He was tried and convicted several times for assault and theft and was frequently in debt. He was expelled for “dissolute behavior” from the Society of Friends in 1757 when he was in his early twenties. His unruly behavior continued into adulthood when he was forced to sell his 300-acre farm to pay his debts, and later served time in debtor’s prison. Huddy proved that he was physically tough at an early age. It is said that he survived a boating accident in Delaware Bay by swimming for three hours.
In 1764, he married Mary Borden and the couple eventually had two daughters, Martha and Elizabeth. After Mary died in the 1770s, Huddy moved to Colts Neck in Monmouth County, where on October 27, 1778, he married his second wife, Catherine Applegate Hart, a widowed owner of a tavern she had inherited from her first husband. Huddy and Catherine soon became estranged. He was then accused by the Monmouth County sheriff of trying to commit fraud by acquiring the tavern, forcing his wife and her children out onto the street, and selling their possessions.
1
Court records show that during these years Huddy was in civil and criminal court many times as both a plaintiff and a defendant. He was arrested for assault in 1778.
2 He was again accused of livestock theft in 1781.
3
When the Revolutionary War broke out Huddy volunteered to become captain of a privateering ship. The mission of the Black Snake was to prey on British merchant ships cruising along the New Jersey coast. By his commission, the Continental Congress authorized Huddy to “set forth in a warlike manner” against the British in “the Armed boat called Black Snake.” The tiny vessel only weighed ten tons, far below the average size for an American privateering ship. It had a single swivel gun and a 14-man crew. The success of the armed boat, the Black Snake, is unknown, but Huddy’s courage in confronting the world’s greatest naval power with a single swivel gun attests to his patriotism—or perhaps to his impulsive nature.
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| Captain Huddy led from prison to be hanged. From: Our Greater Country; Being a Standard History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent to the Present Time by Henry Davenport Northrop. Published 1901. |
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