Joseph Doane (abt. 1730 - abt. 1783)

Born about 1730 in Plumstead, Bucks, Pennsylvania

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 1 Sep 1783 at about age 53 in Walpole, Ontario, Canada

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Biography

Joseph Doane, the son of Israel Doane and Esther Dillon, was born in Plumstead, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, between 1726 and 1730 and died in Ontario, Canada, aged about 92 years. He married, about 1750, Hester Vickers who died in Ontario.

"Joseph Doane was the father of five of the "Doane Brothers," celebrated in the Revolutionary history of Bucks Co., and any account of his life necessarily involves something of the history of his sons, whose exploits have been the theme of so many newspaper articles and historical references during the past one hundred years. His vocation was that of a carpenter, which occupation he followed the greater part of his active life, and was prosperous to an extent that he became the owner of two farms and was a speculator in lands. They raised a family of six sons and three daughters, all of sturdy, strong and extraordinarily well developed physiques. As children they acquired the reputation of being the most honest, just and kindly disposed of any of their companions; their sense of justice and right was so firmly developed, that they would not even partake of the fallen fruit of a neighbor's orchard, without first obtaining leave of the owner. Well trained as they were in the tenets of the Society of Friends to which they gave their faith, they were Loyalists during the War of the Revolution, not merely from a sense of duty to their King but from a sense of duty to themselves and their religion. This faith in the doctrines of their church led them to the opinion that attempts to change government by force, necessarily must be accompanied by acts of violence and bloodshed, in violation of the laws of God, and that which could not be acquired without force was not worth the cost of getting. This principle made them loyal to the Crown while it was in power, and was the ground of their neutrality during the troublous times of the Revolutionary war. They were known as Friends, loyal to the Crown in their sentiments though neutral in action, and for a time were left at rest and peace as much as were the general body of the Friends of the county.

The conduct of Joseph and his sons was consistent with their principles, and commanded the respect of their neighbors until the independence of the Colonies had been well assured by the successes of the army after 1776, when the war became one for entire independence, between which and 1783 when the preliminary treaty of peace was made in February, the assumed government assumed to all the powers of an established one, and some changes of laws were made not so liberal toward the neutral Friends as those of the former government.

Of these changes, the exactions for military service and the fines for non-compliance fell most heavily upon those who conscientiously looked upon war as the worst of all evils. Members of the Society of Friends refused to train in the militia musters, or to pay the penalties imposed, leaving the officers to collect the exactions by process of law, to which these non-resisting people made no more forcible objections than remonstrance and the pressure of moral suasion. It was not the amount of those penalties that gave them so much grief, as the fact of their being compelled to support a system of violence and bloodshed that was at variance with their sense of duty to their Creator. Joseph, and his sons who had grown to be over eighteen years of age, became in the new order of things subject to these exactions which they by omission refused to pay, and had their property seized and sold by the collectors.

Whatever Joseph may have done to render himself subject to the direct action of the law is not clear but, on November 11, 1777, he was fined fifty dollars by the Bucks County Court at Newtown for “misdemeanor." With the reputation for uprightness and integrity that still clings to the memory of Joseph Doane through his neighbors and the descendants of those who knew him, we can imagine no act of his that could make him subject to the penal law, except such as might be connected with his omission to pay the military taxes which was often construed to be a form of misdemeanor.

Hence the strong sense of justice in himself and his children would be greatly outraged by such a public act of disgrace, and he would by omission refuse to comply with any order of the court, an action in which it is reasonable to suppose he would be supported by all of his children. Whatever he did in this matter of the penalty we have no means of determining, but it is concluded that Joseph omitted to comply with the order of the court and left its commands to be enforced by process of law. It is not unreasonable to suppose that these exactions brought to the minds of Joseph's sons such a sense of wrong and oppression, as to break down the results of their early training, and prompt them to enter upon those acts of reprisal for which they became extensively known and ultimately published as outlaws.

Certain it is that, from about the time of the enforcement of this penalty, they ceased their habits of industry and entered upon a course of listless roving, that ended in misfortune and trouble to them all.

Much has been published from time to time through local newspapers, and works of fiction as to their being Tories and enemies of the country, but no official record or testimony has yet been produced to show that they or any of them ever took up arms against the country, or carried intelligence to the enemy respecting the disposition or movements of the American army ; nor is it in any way shown, other than by their neutral attitude of non-resistance, that they ever gave aid and comfort to the mother country, and no act of theirs has ever been shown that presented an appearance of being other than reprisals for the recovery of property that had by the forms of law in their estimation been unjustly taken from them. Whatever others may have done in the way of plundering and in so doing left the burden of the act upon the Doans that seems to melt away under the scrutiny of close investigation.

Whatever may have subsequently transpired with respect to Joseph, the records are entirely silent until after the robbery of the Treasury at Newtown on the night of Oct. 22, 1781. A complicity with this affair is charged upon him by Jesse Vickers, who, under a promise of pardon from sentence of death, turned state's evidence and gave information as to the persons participating in that robbery. Much allowance should be made for a statement where one person seeks to save his own life by throwing guilt upon another. His brother Solomon Vickers, who made confession at the same time, was convicted of perjury. The statements of these two convicts induce the inference that Joseph Doan, Sen., was residing on his farm in Plumstead at the time of the commission of the robbery of the Treasury, and knew nothing of the affair until some time after, and that his complicity consisted in harboring his sons, Aaron and Moses, his nephew Abraham and his kinsmen the two Vickers boys, shortly after the robbery ; that he borrowed a small sum of money from his son Moses and advised them to leave the place, as the robbery of the Treasury had made a great disturbance. This occurred shortly after the robbery in 1781, the confessions were made Aug. 7, 1782 and on the 25th of Sept., 1783, Joseph, who had gone to seek his son Mahlon, was arrested and placed in the jail at Bedford, Pa. On the confession of the Vickers boys, he was denounced as a participator in the robbery after the fact, also of harboring and comforting his own sons, and a reward was offered for his arrest.

The procedure at that time, in cases where parties were charged with offences and had not been arrested, was for the sheriff to proclaim the fact by public outcry at the Court-house door, and command the alleged offender to appear before the Court at that or the next term, in default of which he was proclaimed an outlaw and liable to be attainted as a traitor. It is reasonable to suppose that Joseph on his farm in Plumstead, or as a carpenter in places even more remote, and feeling entirely innocent of any wrongdoing, did not hear of the proclamation against him from the Court-house steps twenty miles distant.

It is a well settled tradition among the descendants of his friends in Plumstead that, for several months during the summer of 1783, he was erecting buildings in Northampton Co. ; that, on returning to his home early in September he found his property confiscated, his home desolate, his family destitute, his sons fugitives and himself an outlaw ; that, learning of the place where his son Mahlon was abiding, he journeyed thither and was arrested and confined in the jail at Bedford, as before stated. His arrest was made Sept. 25, 1783, by one Joseph Wilson, and his son Mahlon was arrested on the 29th by one John Sallamon and lodged in the same prison with his father.

The Archives of the State show that on Oct. 9, 1783, the Supreme Executive Council directed the Sheriff of Bedford County to convey the said prisoners under an armed guard to the jail at Lancaster. The transfer however appears not to have been accomplished, as tradition relates that they escaped from the prison, and that before leaving they released all the prisoners save one, who was guilty of robbing a woman. It also appears from the Colonial records that, later in 1783, Joseph Doan, Sen., was again arrested and lodged in prison at Newtown, and at the March term of Court the next year, he was tried and convicted of the heinous crime of harboring and comforting his own children, who at a later date were charged with having participated in the robbery of the Public Treasury at Newtown. For his offence he was sentenced to be burned in the hand and to suffer six months imprisonment. Joseph, however, survived his sentence and afterwards lived in Plumstead in comparative poverty. The late Nathan Preston, a resident of that town from infancy, remembered and described Joseph Doan as a hale and venerable old man, an habitual attendant on the Meetings of Friends, that he was poor and made a scanty living by erecting post and rail fences for the farmers. The latest account of him in Bucks Co. is had from the minutes of the Meeting at Buckingham of date 1799,9,2, when Hester Doan and her hu8band, Joseph, applied for a certificate to remove to Canada, where their sons Aaron and Joseph were then living. The certificate was granted and a contribution was made by their sympathizing friends. Later accounts show that Joseph and his wife arrived safe in Canada, where they sojourned with their children many years, dying at the home of their son Joseph, Jr.

Whatever may have been the offences of Joseph Doan and his sons prior to the treaty of recognition of American Independence, by the British Government, those offences were all condoned and immunity from any consequence thereof provided and agreed upon by the two contracting parties, both in the preliminary treaty of Nov. 30, 1782, and by ratification of the same, done by the American Congress Sept. 3, 1783. The following is a copy of so much of the treaty as pertains to the subject:

There shall be no future confiscations made, nor any prosecutions commenced against any person or persons for or by reason of the part which he or they may have taken in the present war, and that no person shall on that account suffer any future loss or damage either in person, liberty or property, and that those who may be in confinement on such charges at the time of the ratification of the Treaty in America, shall be immediately set at liberty, and the prosecutions so commenced discontinued.

And yet, eight days after the ratification of this Treaty by the American Congress in Philadelphia, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, assembled within sound of the voices that confirmed the Treaty, sent forth their edict that despoiled Joseph Doan of his home, and turned his family upon the charities of the world, and still later seared him with the hot brand of Felony, and incarcerated him in a filthy prison for offences charged as committed during the war, and for which the nation in accepting the terms of its Independence contracted to grant him amnesty and entire immunity on account thereof."^[1]

Children of Joseph and Hester (Vickers) Doane:

1. Moses, b. 1750.
   
   
2. Joseph, b. 1752,4,1.
   
   
3. Aaron,
   
   
4. Levi,
   
   
5. Mahlon,
   
   
6. Mary, m. Samuel Doane, son of Titus Doane of Crowland, Canada.
   
   
7. Betsey, m. Thomas Millard ; res. in Can.
   
   
8. Hester, m. Edward Richardson; res. in Can.
   
   
9. Thomas, went to Canada.

Sources

1. ↑ Alfred Alder Doane, THE DOANE FAMILY AND THEIR DESCENDANTS, (Boston, Mass., 1902) Pgs. 126-130

• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/48052828/joseph-doan : accessed 31 October 2021), memorial page for Joseph Doan (1726–1818), Find a Grave Memorial ID 48052828, citing Doan Cemetery, Port Colborne, Niagara Regional Municipality, Ontario, Canada ; Maintained by Becky Doan (contributor 46821009) .