William Tomlin was a Private in the Third Battalion, Gloucester County (present-day Atlantic County) of the New Jersey Militia under Colonel Richard Somers and also a Private in the New Jersey State Troops.  He was born about 1733 at Gloucester County, New Jersey, and died in 1804 at Goshen, Cape May County, New Jersey.  He married Margaret Martha Ackerman in 1755 at Cumberland, New Jersey.  William and Martha raised ten children on their large farm at Cape May.  William was a married man of 43 with nine children between the ages of one and 19 when he volunteered in 1776 for the duration of the war.

Under the New Jersey Provincial Congress Militia Act, each man was instructed to furnish himself with a “...good musket or firelock and bayonet, sword or tomahawk, a steel ramrod, priming-wire and brush fitted thereto, a cartridge-box to contain twenty-three rounds of cartridges, twelve flints, and a knapsack.” Militiamen wore their own clothing. In the book “A people Harassed and Exhausted – The Story of a New Jersey Militia Regiment in the American Revolution,” by Larry Kidder, there are pictures and descriptions of clothing worn by New Jersey Militiamen.

On November 19, 1776, British and Hessian forces invaded New Jersey and almost immediately, William was thrown into action. He fought in the Petticoat Bridge Skirmish and the Battle of Iron Works Hill, December 22-23, 1776. These actions were designed to draw hostile troops away from General Washington’s plans for Trenton.

William participated in both the Battles of Trenton and Princeton during Christmas, 1776, and the Second Battle for Trenton (Assunpink Creek) at Trenton, January 2, 1777.  Afterwards, he encamped in Morristown, New Jersey, with General Washington for the winter.  There, under General William “Scotch Willie” Maxwell’s command, he harassed the British and Hessian foragers in the surrounding area.  From 1777 onward, William patrolled his battalion’s area of responsibility.  They also patrolled the seashore and captured numerous stranded British transport ships, their cargoes and crews.  They used this cargo to help feed the troops in times like Valley Forge.  They also helped with the prisoner exchange programs.

In his role as a member of the State Troops, William served in the after-battle skirmish led by the Marquis de Lafayette at Red Bank on the Delaware in November, 1777, and the battle at Chestnut Neck, New Jersey, in October, 1778.  Also, the militia helped control the large Tory population still loyal to the crown, by helping to enforce the "treason acts."  William was mustered out and received his final pay in 1783.  One more child had been born during the war in 1779.  Upon his death in 1804, William left his entire estate to his wife Martha in his Will.