Bodies of men assuming authority to rid the community of undesirable persons, and themselves in many cases violating the law. The N.E.D. gives examples 1767, 1768, 1771. See Mr. Albert Matthews’s letter on ‘Lynch Law,’ in the N.Y. Nation, Dec. 4, 1902, p. 441; also W. H. Foote, ‘Sketches of North Carolina,’ ch. 2 (N.Y., 1846), and John H. Wheeler, ‘Historical Sketches of North Carolina,’ i. ch. 8, ii. ch. i. (Phila.).
1768. A letter from Pine-Tree Hill (S.C.) contains the following intelligence, viz: The Regulators have fixed upon the 5th of next month to have a meeting here to draw up their grievances…. The Regulators from the Congaree, Board, and Saludy Rivers are not to proceed to town, unless sent for by their brethren.—Boston Evening Post, Oct. 17.
1769. We learn from North-Carolina that the People in that Province, who stile themselves Regulators, tied the Sheriff of Orange County to a tree, and gave him 500 Lashes; they likewise obliged him to Eat the Writ they found in his Possession.—Boston Weekly News-Letter, May 4.
1770. A violent insurrection in Orange County, among a sett of men who call themselves Regulators, and who for some years past have given infinite disturbance to the civil government of this province, but now have sapped its whole foundation.—Letter from Newbern, S.C., with details concerning the outrages committed by the “Regulators”: id., Nov. 12.
1770. We hear from Bound Brook that one William Daniels [beat his wife] … and a Number of Persons, who are termed there Regulators, went to Daniels, and taking him out of his Bed whipp’d him [so that he died].—Mass. Gazette, Feb. 5.
1771. The Regulators in the back settlements [Cross Creek, N.C.] have given his Excellency and the troops under his command battle…. The Regulators will not stand to the laws of the country, but want to make laws of their own.—Mass. Spy, June 27. [The engagement took place at Almancee.]
1771. A Fan for Fanning, and a Touchstone for Tryon, being an Account of the Rise and Progress of the so much talked of Regulators in North Carolina.—Advt of a pamphlet: Mass. Spy, Nov. 7.
1775. About 1770, the extreme difficulty of bringing criminals from remote settlements to a legal condemnation, induced numbers, stiled regulators, to take the law into their own hands. They inflicted corporal punishment on persons without a regular condemnation.—W. Gordon, ‘Hist. Am. Revol.,’ ii. 101 (Lond., 1788).
1780. About the year 1772 … a small number of people in the back parts [of North-Carolina] rose in arms, under the name of Regulators, against the Government.—John Adams to Mr. Calkoen, Oct. 10.
a. 1792. [When horse-thieves and other vagabonds were about], the citizens formed themselves into a regulating party, commonly known as “regulators,” a kind of holy brotherhood, whose duty required them to purge the neighborhood of such unruly members.—Monette, ‘History of the Mississippi Valley,’ ii. 17 (1848). (Italics in the original.)
1800. Regulators were appointed by the Fire companies to attend the Fire Association in Philadelphia.—The Aurora, April 17.
1820. [About 1770,] Governor Tryon [headed an] expedition against the Regulators, as they called themselves, in North Carolina [insurgents in the west counties].—Note to the Hartford ed. of John Trumbull’s ‘M‘Fingal,’ p. 125.
[1827. Being without a regulator [the children] indulged in hilarity, profanity, &c.—Mass. Spy, May 23].
1833. Hence originated the institution called the Regulators, formerly common on the remote frontiers, where the influence of the general government was not felt, and where there were as yet no local authorities.—J. K. Paulding, ‘The Banks of the Ohio,’ i. 167 (Lond.). (Italics in the original.)
1840. In the Revolution he leaned to the British side, and the “regulators” consulted together about dressing the doctor in a suit of homespun, vulgularly (sic) called tar and feathers.—E. S. Thomas, ‘Reminiscences,’ i. 24 (Hartford, Conn.).
1844. A parcel of men who were committing various acts of violence under the authority of “Lynch,” or, as they styled themselves, Regulators.—Phila. Spirit of the Times, Nov. 8.
1846. In April 1767 these men passed the Rubicon; and from being called a mob, or insurgents, were known by the name of Regulators.—‘Sketches of North Carolina,’ by W. H. Foote, p. 52. [See more at large pp. 51–67.]
