Bill Bleyer - George Washingtons Long Island Spy Ring

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.com

Copyright 2021 by Bill Bleyer

All rights reserved

Front cover, top: Evacuation day and Washingtons triumphal entry in New York City, Nov. 25th, 1783 by lithographer Edmund P. Restein. Library of Congress. Bottom : Robert Townsend, the chief Culper spy in New York City, in a painting by Long Island historical artist Mort Knstler. Courtesy of Knstler Enterprises, Ltd., from the original painting The Culper Spy by Mort Knstler 2013 Mort Knstler Inc., www.mkunstler.com.

First published 2021

e-book edition 2021

ISBN 978.1.43967.252.5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021931181

print edition ISBN 978.1.46714.347.9

Notice : The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

To Beverly Tyler and Claire Bellerjeau, dedicated local historians without whose help and expertise on the Culper Spy Ring this book would have been impossible.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Beverly Tyler of the Three Village Historical Society; Claire Bellerjeau and Harriet Gerard Clark of the Raynham Hall Museum; Natalie Naylor; former North Hempstead town historian Howard Kroplick; Southold town historian Amy Folk; Gloria Rocchio and Marie Gilberti of the Ward Melville Heritage Organization; former CutchogueNew Suffolk Historical Council director Zach Studenroth; Islip town historian George Munkenbeck; Brookhaven town historian Barbara Russell; Huntington town historian Robert Hughes; Southampton town historian Julie Greene; Babylon town historian Mary Cascone; Maryanne Douglas, Millie Zimmerman and Suzanne Johnson of the Davis Town Meeting House Society; Mike Fricchione; Richard Wines; Suffolk County director of historic services Richard C. Martin; Sagtikos Manor Historical Society president Christeen Gottsch; 1 in 9 at Hewlett House director Geri Barish; Matthew Blum at Rock Hall Museum; Kim Barteau, Barbara Compono and Karen Liotta at the Bayville Public Library; Mort and Jane Knstler; artist Mark Maritato; Bert Seides of the Ketcham Inn Foundation; Richard Welch; Oyster Bay town historian John Hammond; and John Staudt.

Audrey C. Tiernan for her superb photographs of surviving sites.

My volunteer editor/proofreaders for the entire manuscriptClaire Bellerjeau, Joe Catalano (who read it twice), Joan Bleyer Lazarus, Beverly Tyler, Richard Welch, and especially Natalie Nayloror for select chapters, John Hammond and John Staudt.

My editors at The History Press: Banks Smither and Abigail Fleming.

And special thanks to former Congressman Steve Israel for suggesting I do a book about Long Islands George Washington Spy Trail.

INTRODUCTION

A courier meets clandestinely with a merchant in Manhattan. Hes given a report on British troop dispositions written in invisible ink. He hides the document in his saddle, takes a ferry across the East River and then speeds fifty-five miles east to Setauket. There the letter is handed off to a farmer who passes it to a whaleboat captain waiting in a secluded cove. The document is rowed across Long Island Sound and carried by a relay of dispatch riders to General George Washingtons headquarters north of New York City, where it guides the Continental Armys commander in chief in planning his moves.

That ongoing Revolutionary War scenario may not be as famous or compelling as the one-time ride of Paul Revere and his two Boston compatriots to warn their fellow Patriots of the coming of the redcoats to Lexington and Concord. But it is one of the most critical activities of the American Revolution because the efforts of what has become known as the Culper Spy Ring played an important role in winning independence from Great Britain.

The Patriot commander knew that gaining intelligence of British military actions through a spy network was critical if his underdog army was to have a chance of successfully fighting the largest military power in the world for the colonies independence. So when the British gained control of New York City and Long Island after the Battle of Long Island in 1776, Washington began a long and difficult process of creating an espionage operation in the region.

A 1776 map of Long Island. Long Island Studies Institute at Hofstra University .

Historians have long been fascinated by the intelligence efforts undertaken by the patriotic and enthusiastic amateurs. In more than a dozen books, researchers have tried to sort out who was involved and exactly what their roles were. The biggest mystery was the identity of Culper Junior, the chief spy in Manhattan in the later years of the war. Most of the spy ring operatives identified themselves or were identified after the war, but not Culper Junior. So when Suffolk County historian Morton Pennypacker revealed him to have been Robert Townsend of Oyster Bay in 1930 and then proved it with document analysis nine years later, it generated considerable attention.

Interest in the Patriots intelligence network soared when the AMC television series Turn: Washingtons Spies aired for four seasons between 2014 and 2017. Unfortunately, it took great liberties with the facts. These included having the ring created in 1776 rather than two years later, depicting Setauket as a neighborhood of stately stone homes rather than wooden structures, having the hamlet occupied by regular army redcoats rather than Loyalist troops wearing green, portraying Abraham Woodhulls minister father as a Tory socializing with the occupiers rather than showing the reality of him being a Patriot sympathizer badly beaten by soldiers trying to find and arrest his son and, most ludicrously, having Woodhull and the happily married and older Anna Strong engage in a secret affair. But the series did get people reading and talking about espionage during the war.

As with Turn , Pennypacker and many of the authors who have written about the Culper Ring subsequently have strayed from the truth. Pennypackers books, which lack footnotes, transformed some anecdotal information and legends into fact. And later writers have often repeated that material without researching or even questioning it. And while they may have sought information from Long Island historians who have spent decades studying the subject, they didnt always listen to them.

The most prominent writer in that category would be Fox News co-host Brian Kilmeade, who lives on Long Island. In preparing his 2013 bestseller with coauthor Don Yaeger and other writers, he convened gatherings of local historians from Culper-connected locations such as Setauket and Oyster Bay. They provided him with much information, some of which he ignored when it didnt fit into his narrative. He also strayed into historical fiction by filling the book with invented dialogue without indicating that the words were never spoken by the participants.