Colonel Tye Becomes a Legend as His Death Carries Unanswered Questions

Titus Cornelius committed a map of Virginia to memory and safely made the trip becoming a member of Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment. Titus and his regiment then fled Virginia due to starvation and smallpox.  He returned to Monmouth County known as Colonel Tye, a man who had a score to settle.

In his early twenties, he first saw combat at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, and promptly captured a captain of the local militia. This event brought Titus to the attention of the British, who saw him as a soldier of skill and ability.

Though he was known as Colonel Tye, the title was bestowed upon him by his men, not the British who did not appoint Africans as officers. Tye had knowledge of the swamplands and rivers of Monmouth County, which allowed them to appear from nowhere and disappear just as fast.

The “cow-boy” raids as they were known were a combination of guerrilla warfare and revenge against slave-masters. Raids ranged from plantations, to military outposts, to homes.

In 1779, the same year Gerardus Beekman was in Shrewsbury, Tye's men attacked his master's hometown.  They took 80 head of cattle, 20 horses, clothing and furniture.

Fear rose that Tye would eventually massacre rebel slave owners. Tye joined forces with the Queens Rangers in protecting New York City and plundering wood and fuel as they became the most feared loyalists of the day.

In September 1780, on a simple raid on the home of Josiah Huddy, Tye was shot with a musket ball to his wrist. He died of gangrene and tetanus.

One of the most obvious issues in historic research is dependable resources of research. The manipulation of data or unreliability of handed down stories creates folklore more than fact.

The question is could Gerardus Beekman have taken Colonel Tye after injury and allowed him to live his days in central New Jersey? This provocative question cannot be answered. If this did happen, Gerardus Beekman covered the trail well with a body of well documented paperwork legal and binding. I will never stop researching the possibility.