The Doan Gang
Plumstead Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
In 1783 the Pa. State Government declared six Doan family members outlaws for robberies, burglaries, and felonies. During the Revolutionary War, the Doans of Plumstead Twp. spied for and sold stolen horses to the British Army. They robbed the county treasury in 1781. Leader Moses was killed in a shoot-out, Abraham and Levi were hanged, Joseph Jr. and Aaron fled to Canada, and Mahlon disappeared. Three are buried nearby.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
During the American Revolution, the Doan family of Plumstead Township turned outlaw, spying for the British and trafficking stolen horses to their army even as the war raged around them. In 1781 they robbed the Bucks County treasury, and in 1783 the Pennsylvania government formally declared six of them outlaws for a string of robberies and burglaries. The gang met a violent end: their leader Moses was killed in a shootout, two brothers were hanged, and the rest fled or vanished, with several buried nearby.
Why it matters
The Doan Gang is a striking reminder that the Revolution was also a bitter civil conflict, dividing communities into patriots, loyalists, and opportunists on the home front.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Plumstead Township sits in Bucks County, in the rolling farm country north of Philadelphia, and during the American Revolution this was not a quiet countryside far from the fighting. Southeastern Pennsylvania was contested, anxious ground — close enough to the war's movements that armies, supplies, and loyalties were all in play, and communities were forced to take sides.
We sometimes remember the Revolution as a clean contest between American patriots and the British army. On the home front it was messier and darker than that. Neighbors divided into patriots and loyalists, wartime scarcity created black markets in horses and goods, and the ordinary machinery of law and order strained under the pressure.
Into that unsettled world stepped the Doan family of Plumstead Township. Their story only makes sense against this backdrop of a revolution that was also, in places like Bucks County, a bitter and personal civil conflict.
People & events
The marker names six members of the family — Moses, Abraham, Levi, Joseph Jr., Aaron, and Mahlon Doan — and lays out a chronicle of crime tangled up with the war itself. During the Revolution, the Doans of Plumstead Township spied for the British Army and sold it stolen horses, profiting from the very conflict tearing their region apart.
Their most audacious act came in 1781, when they robbed the Bucks County treasury. Two years later, in 1783, the Pennsylvania state government formally declared six family members outlaws for a string of robberies, burglaries, and felonies — a public branding that fixed their reputation for good.
The reckoning was harsh and scattered. Their leader, Moses, was killed in a shoot-out. Abraham and Levi were hanged. Joseph Jr. and Aaron fled to Canada, and Mahlon simply disappeared from the record. Three of them, the marker tells us, are buried nearby — a quiet ending, in home ground, to a violent story.
Its place in the American story
The Doan Gang endures as a striking corrective to a tidy version of the Revolution. Alongside the soldiers and statesmen, the war produced opportunists and outlaws who exploited the chaos — and whose choices set them violently against their own neighbors.
Their tale is a reminder that the Revolution was, in many communities, a civil war. To be a loyalist, a patriot, or something in between was not an abstraction; it shaped who you traded with, who you feared, and, in the Doans' case, who eventually hunted you down. The line between political allegiance and outright crime could blur.
Stories like this one also show how a new state government asserted its authority in wartime. The formal act of declaring men outlaws, and the executions that followed, were the young commonwealth insisting that even amid revolution, there would be a law — and consequences for those who defied it.
If you visit
This is a marker for travelers who like their history with sharp edges. Bucks County today is gentle, green, and prosperous, which makes the tale on the plaque all the more arresting — a reminder that this peaceful landscape once held spies, stolen horses, and a raided public treasury.
Stand for a moment with the detail that three of the outlaws lie buried nearby. There's a real poignancy in it: however far the others scattered — to the gallows, to Canada, or into thin air — this ground pulled some of them back at the end. Let that settle the story into the actual place beneath your feet.
If you're touring the Revolutionary-era sites of southeastern Pennsylvania, this is a bracing counterpoint to the marble-and-monument version of the war. It fits a back-roads drive through Bucks County beautifully — just come ready for a story about the home front's shadows rather than its heroes.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Moses Doan
- · Abraham Doan
- · Levi Doan
- · Joseph Doan Jr.
- · Aaron Doan
- · Mahlon Doan
Related events
- · Robbery of the Bucks County treasury, 1781
Themes & tags
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