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 No known portraits of the Doan brothers from life exist but only from woodcut images. Woodcut of Abraham Doan, as recorded as "One of the Doans shooting a British officer", from The Pennsylvania New Jersey Delaware Almanac 1849 and also, Annals of the Revolution; or, a History of the Doans. | |
| Founded by | Moses Doan |
|---|---|
| Founding location | Plumstead, Bucks County, Province of Pennsylvania, British North America, British Empire, present-day Plumstead Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, US |
| Years active | 1774-1783 |
| Territory | Bucks County, Province of Pennsylvania to Province of New York, British North America, British Empire |
| Ethnicity | American |
| Membership (est.) | 6 |
| Criminal activities | horse theft, highway robbery, murder |
The Doan Outlaws, also known as the "Doan Boys" and "Plumstead Cowboys", were a notorious gang of brothers from a Quaker family most renowned for being British spies during the American Revolutionary War.
The Doans were Loyalists from a Quaker family of good standing. The "Doan Boys" reached manhood at the time of the American Revolutionary War. Growing up in Plumstead, Pennsylvania, the Doans excelled athletically. The Doan gang's principal occupation was robbing Whig tax collectors and horse theft. The gang stole over 200 horses from their neighbors in Bucks County that they sold to the Red Coats in Philadelphia and Baltimore. The Friends Meeting House's cemetery in Plumsteadville is protected by a field stone wall that runs around its perimeter. Levi and Abraham Doan were buried just outside this wall because the pacifist Quakers refused to bury militants within their graveyard (a veteran of the Civil War is likewise buried outside the graveyard perimeter). The graves are adorned with their original native brownstone headstones which bear no inscriptions, following the Quaker practice at the time of their death, as well as newer headstones that identify them as outlaws.