Major Ward’s Company of Refugees: The Shadow World Around Michael Hawkins

 Before Michael Hawkins became a New Brunswick Loyalist settler, he appears in a much more dangerous setting: the wartime refugee world around British-held New York, New Jersey, Bergen County, Bull’s Ferry, and the Hudson River corridor.

One of the most important clues to understanding Michael Hawkins is his connection to Thomas Ward’s Company of Refugees.

Ward is often remembered as Major Thomas Ward, though at the time Michael Hawkins may have reported to him, Ward was likely functioning as Captain Thomas Ward. Either way, Ward’s company was not simply a group of ordinary soldiers in neat uniforms marching in straight lines. These men belonged to the rougher, darker, more practical side of the Revolutionary War.

They were called Refugees.
They were associated with woodcutting.
But that plain word — woodcutters — may hide what they really were.

These men operated in the contested borderland between British and American power. They knew the roads, rivers, farms, forests, landing places, blockhouses, and back channels. They knew which families were Loyalist, which were Patriot, which houses were safe, and which paths could get a man killed.

In that world, cutting wood was not just manual labour. It was cover. It gave men a reason to move through dangerous ground, scout terrain, gather intelligence, watch rebel movement, supply British positions, and support military operations around the Hudson and Bergen war zone.

In plain language, Ward’s Refugees may have been part of the working intelligence arm of the British war effort, hidden under the practical title of woodcutters.

They were the men between the army and the wilderness.
Between the blockhouse and the enemy line.
Between British New York and rebel New Jersey.
Between survival and capture.

This matters because Michael Hawkins was not merely sitting quietly in New Jersey waiting for a ship to New Brunswick. His association with Ward’s Refugees places him in a hard, dangerous, and highly mobile Loyalist network.

The same world included places like Bull’s Ferry, Fort Lee, Weehawken, Hackensack, and the British lines around New York. It was a corridor of refugees, guides, pilots, woodcutters, spies, scouts, displaced families, and men who knew how to survive in contested country.

Michael Hawkins should be understood in that context.

Not as a forgotten name on a list.
Not as a lonely settler who appears only after 1783.
But as a man who likely lived through the violent border war before becoming part of the Loyalist migration to New Brunswick.

Men Associated with Captain Thomas Ward’s Company of Refugees

I believe the following are 36 of the 75 members associated with Captain Thomas Ward’s Company of Refugees:

1. Captain Benjamin Babcock
2. David Babcock
3. Lieutenant Absolam Bull
4. Lieutenant George Bull
5. John Burnet
6. Thomas Burnet
7. William Burnett
8. John Edgar
9. John Everet
10. Ezekiel Fealey
11. John Fealey
12. James Feudal
13. Cornelius Hall
14. George Harding, Jr.
15. William Harding
16. Michael Hawkins
17. Nazareth Hill
18. William Howe
19. James Huston, Sr.
20. John Lawson
21. Simon Leroy
22. John Longly
23. Captain Philip Luke
24. Samuel Miller
25. John Mullan
26. Nicholas Peterson, Jr.
27. Nicholas Peterson, Sr.
28. Christopher Peterson
29. Paul Peterson
30. Nicholas Power(s)
31. Stephen Roblin
32. Alexander Russell
33. Alexander Sharp
34. Alexander Snider
35. Captain, late Major Thomas Ward
36. Samuel Williams

Why This List Matters

This list is not just a roll call.

For anyone researching Michael Hawkins, these names are a map.

Every man on this list may represent a possible clue: a neighbour, a military associate, a witness, a fellow refugee, a land petitioner, a shipmate, or a postwar New Brunswick connection.

The names around Michael Hawkins may tell us what the records have not yet told us directly.

Who did he serve with?
Who did he trust?
Who migrated with him?
Who settled near him?
Who had ties to New York, New Jersey, Bergen County, Bull’s Ferry, or the Hudson River?

This is how brick walls break.

Not by staring only at Michael Hawkins in isolation, but by rebuilding the world around him — one associate, one company list, one Loyalist claim, one land petition, and one family connection at a time.

Michael Hawkins was part of Ward’s world.

And Ward’s world was not ordinary.

It was the shadow edge of the Revolutionary War: refugees, woodcutters, scouts, guides, blockhouse defenders, intelligence gatherers, and Loyalist survivors operating in one of the most dangerous corridors in North America.