Outlyers

Outlyers were people with Loyalist [2], or Tory, sympathies on the eve of the American Revolution [3] who hid in the countryside to avoid being impressed into the Patriot ranks. The Moravians [4] noted that living along the Yadkin River were "many who sided with the King [and] were driven from house and home by persecution." They asserted that these individuals were "the first Outlyers, as they were later called." In passing through Salem [5] some of them, when questioned, replied that they "were on their way to join the King's Standard and do their duty."