Essential Equipment

Volunteers in the Frontier Guard were required to equip themselves with certain pieces of equipment as stated in the recruitment noticed posted in the New York Mercury 1756

“ Each man must equip himself, at his own expense with a good and sufficient musket, cutlass or hatchet, cartouch box, powder horn, blanket and knap sack”

Weapons
“Good and Sufficient Musket”

The musket, or smooth bore, varied significantly, not only in style, length, and bore size, but also in origin. The individual recruit could have carried an English brown bess, a French, Spanish, Dutch or Germanic musket or one made here in the colonies. Some examples are:

the Hudson Valley fowler, 

the English fowler:

 

or the Brown Bess

The bore sizes of the guns varied. Most of the surviving examples indicate the average bore size was between .60 and .80 caliber. 

“Cutlass or Hatchet”

The (English) term hatchet or the (North American ) term tomahawk related to the same weapon. These also varied in shape and size.

The hanger or cutlass

Many good examples of tomahawks and cutlasses have survived. However, there are no known surviving weapons that can be directly attributed to having been carried or utilized by the New Jersey Frontier Guard.

Clothing

The first Company of New Jersey Frontier Guard was a volunteer militia unit, there for it was not a uniformed unit.

Succeeding companies, for example , a second unit under the command of Captain Hezekiah Dunn, were issued standard uniforms.

The “ wearing apparel” of the Frontier Guard was as diverse as areas of New Jersey, the occupations or walks of life the members came from.

The New Jersey Frontier Guard was made up of Farmers, Merchants, Tradesmen, etc.
There was a significant difference in the clothing from the city to the frontier.  Much more of the clothing on the frontier reflected adoption of Indian modes of dress, such as leather or wool leggings and moccasins.

Some of the basic items of clothing common to all were: a shirt, breeches, waistcoat, stockings, leggings, belt. A head covering would have been anything from a kerchief to a wide array of hats: tricorn, slope, round, wide brim , etc.

Other required essentials
A cartouch (cartridge box),

Powder horn,

 Blanket and knapsack.