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The first historical mention of these outcasts is to be found in the quaint history of New Jersey by Samuel Smith, published in 1720. Speaking of the white and red cedar, he says "the towering retreat of the former have afforded many an asylum for David's men of necessity" -- here alluding to First Samuel 22:2, where is recorded "And every one in distress, and every one in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto David."

But during the two centuries that have elapsed since Samuel Smith wrote his history, the Pines of New Jersey have had other settlers besides these "men of necessity." In course of time, this valuable timber land was bought up by speculators; first the cedars and later the pines were cut off and shipped from the convenient harbors along the coast. Before the revolution, it had been discovered that the bogs were rich in iron ore, so that a considerable number of furnaces were established at Batsto, Weymouth, Hanover, etc., whose output became the chief native source of the iron supply. Many of the cannons used during the revolution were cast at these furnaces as well as the pots and pans of our ancestors.

Meanwhile the settlers along the river and coast were rapidly developing the agricultural resources of the country and though they had been joined by non-conformists of various sects, the Friends continued to dominate most of the settlements of West New Jersey. As time went on and the great ideas of independence were being developed, the rules of the society in regard to war prevented them from taking active part in the revolution, although many of them were at heart sealed to their adopted country's cause. Their uncompromising attitude in this regard, however, made them seem as a body, to favor the Tory side, and many of them suffered at the hands of their warlike fellow countrymen, imprisonment, exile, and hardship of every sort.

True, there were notable exceptions to the rule that Friends would not fight. Many a noble youth broke the cherished tie of family and faith and went out a double martyr to his country's call, but such were invariably "dealt with" and where they persisted in their determination, were disowned by the society, which then made a formal protest against this breaking down of their "testimony." Through their stern adherence to peace principles, the Quakers in west New Jersey at the beginning of the revolution, became all unwittingly a kind of protecting bulwark, behind which the most atrocious outlawry was carried on in the Pines. With the coming of Lord Howe to Staten Island in 1776, a partly successful attempt was made to form in New Jersey a military organization of native Tories. Tory troops of between five and six hundred men kept up a kind of guerrilla warfare from the edge of the Pines, spreading havoc and destruction among the neighboring farms.

F. B. Lee, in his history of New Jersey, says: "Associated with these regiments, possessing a semblance of military organization, real or assumed, was a disjointed band of land pirates, known as "Pine robbers." Aided and abetted by the loyalists in New York city whose most active spirit was William Franklin, the deposed governor of New Jersey, these "Pine robbers," among whom were many refugees, raided the tide regions of Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic, Salem, Gloucester, Camden and Burlington Counties, their depredations being yet vividly remembered in local tradition. These "Pine robbers," most of whom were Jersey men hiding by day in the recesses of the Pines or amid the dunes of the seashore, were said to be men of utter depravity whose "lawlessness, cruelty and lust made them a terror to the entire country." The worst of them were subsequently hunted down and killed, the bodies of some being hung as a warning in conspicuous places.

Hessians and Tones

After the battle of Trenton, certain Hessian soldiers and other deserters from the British army found safety in the seclusion of the Pines, and added still another element to its already mixed population.

After the war was over those Tory families who remained in the state were frowned upon with such uncompromising severity as obliged them to take to the woods for self-protection where, despoiled of their possessions and hardened by the passions which war engendered, they fell quickly into the ways of the other outlaws. Thus political animosity added its uncompromising bitterness to the stern disapproval with which the strictly moral, highly intelligent, virtuous and prosperous Quaker population regarded their neighbors of the Pines. The gulf which separated them became impassable except by illicit means.

Today direct descendants of the finest Quaker stock, living still on the edges of the Pines and who have sought to preserve its folk lore, affirm that many of the Piney names belonged to one time prosperous Tory stock. Some of them found legitimate employment in established industries, for the period after the war saw a great increase in the exploitation of the native wealth of the region. New sawmills were set up; charcoal burners were kept busy over the length and breadth of the Pines, while the iron industry took on a new lease of life.