Semester by the Sea Fall 2016: Nov 4: Setauket Spy Museum and Port Jefferson Harbor

The Culper Spy Ring
by Joe Unsworth

In late August of 1776, the Battle of Long Island dealt a blow to the patriots’ hopes for independence. While over 30,000 British troops moved into New York Harbor and Staten Island for the fight, George Washington’s men numbered less than 10,000. This brutal defeat led George Washington to the realization that if they were to have any chance at success, they could no longer fight their battles in such a head to head manner. They would be outgunned and outmanned every time. They needed an upper hand of some kind. This came in the form of Nathan Hale. A Connecticut native, Hale volunteered to sneak into the then British occupied Manhattan and record intelligence for the Patriots. This mission was fairly unplanned and Hale was caught and hanged by the British.

Depiction of Nathan Hale before hanging

(Source: http://www.historichouseblog.com)

Nathan Hale was a Yale graduate. His roommate, Benjamin Talmadge was compelled by Hale’s execution to carry on his mission for intelligence, but this time around, with a greater emphasis on ‘intelligence.’ He becomes head of the Culper Spy Ring, a network of Talmadge’s closest childhood friends who form a calculated and careful team for gathering information from the British. The team was so cautious that not even Washington himself knew their names. Each member had their own codename and a cipher with which they wrote notes to one another. They even used a special type of ink that could only be revealed by a certain reagent. The Culper Spy Ring was extremely effective in the patriots’ efforts and eventually led to the surrender of British forces at Yorktown, ending the Revolution.

Port Jeff & Setauket
by Lila Glansberg

During the Revolutionary War, Washington and his spies communicated through code. The letter shown above was written by Abraham Woodhull (alias: Samuel Culper), the head of the spy ring. The class had a great time decoding it! The first nonsense words are code for a name: Jonas Hawkins. Hawkins was only a spy for about six months before quitting the gig. He was far too nervous and, as the missive goes on to explain, destroyed too many letters for fear of being discovered.

This is the cypher we used to decode the previous letter. Benjamin Tallmadge was in charge of the intelligence operations, and saw to the safety of the spies as well (his friend, Nathaniel Hale, was one of the first spies and was hanged for it). The code was devised by selecting about 800 words that would be necessary for intelligence communications and assigning each word a number. Some examples of these words are man, lady, advice, appointment, refugees, and vigilant. Proper names were also assigned specific numbers—711 is code for George Washington, 729 is Setauket, etc. They also used a letter code, which explains for the nonsense words in the beginning of the last letter.

This picture is of the same display as the last one, but from a different angle. See if you can use some of the words to decode the letter in the first picture! Or, write a coded letter to a friend and see if they can understand it. We had a great time decoding letters as a class in the museum.

These are pictures of the original handwritten code. Tallmadge handwrote all of the code, and presumably everyone involved had a copy; it would be hard to memorize all 800 words and their assigned numbers. All of the pages today are kept in the Library of Congress—a place that is definitely on my list for my next D.C. trip.

It was decided after a while that simply having a code was not enough, and invisible ink was developed. Several kinds were used—some were revealed by acid or heat. However, the British soon figured these out and were able to read the notes if they could get their hands on them. So, the patriots switched over to using an agent-reagent reaction. One could only decode the message if they brushed the agent (ink) with a specific reagent. The note here is addressed to Washington from Woodhull, and reads “we need more ink.” The note is based on a real situation in which Woodhull thought he was going to be searched, and in his panic knocked over the bottle of the special ink. He used what he had left to pen this note to Washington.

Culper Spy Ring and Port Jefferson
by Darren deSilva

This past Friday, November 4th we went to Setauket and Port Jefferson where we learned about the Culper Spy Ring. We found out that the Spry ring was based out of Setauket and George Washington himself had Benjamin Tallmadge found and organize the group. Benjamin Tallmadge was a dragoon and established a well knit group of spies that all came from his hometown and were trustworthy. Eventually this spy organization turned the tide of the war with the information they gained and introduced a new tactic of 18th century warfare.

Image 1: An image of one of the types of codes used by spies when communicating and writing to other members. This code was eventually enhanced by using invisible ink that could only be revealed with a reagent whose ingredients were never written down.

Image 2: An image of the docks at Port Jefferson village where the ferry Connecticut is used along with the R/V Seawolf of Stony Brook University.

We also visited Port Jefferson where we learned about the importance of the port along with the functions it served during the 18th Century and on. Port Jefferson is located on the North Fork of Long Island and was formed by the retreating of the glaciers after the ice age. Port Jefferson served as a deep sea harbor which was very valuable during the times and gave the area the ability to manufacture large ships for whaling and fishing. This eventually increased the prominence whaling culture on Long Island and made Port Jefferson centralized around ship building. The building of ship became a community effort in which different skills were needed such as blacksmiths, tailors, and men to gather wood. The launching of ships was presented as a community event where almost everyone attended as it was a holiday. Also, since Port Jefferson is a harbor there were many different types of people, from the wealthy to the more local fisherman. This diversity also resembles the population today which includes local fisherman, wealthy yacht owners, and college students.

Spies by the Sea
by Janette Lares

On today’s excursion we visited the Three Village Historical Society to view their fantastic Spies! Exhibit and learn all about spies in the Long Island region during the American Revolution. Pictured is the lovely walkway up to the entrance of the Bayles-Swezey House, where the exhibit is displayed.

Pictured is one of the first quotes we observed upon entry into the exhibit, it reads: “There is nothing more necessary than good intelligence to frustrate a designing enemy, & nothing that requires greater pains to obtain.” – George Washington, 1755. Here, Washington is referring to ‘good intelligence’ as information gathered through the act of spying. This poster really helps to set the tone for the rest of the exhibit.

This is a map of the northeast region of the United States where a majority of the American Revolution took place. Instantly, we observed that the map was much older due to the different spellings, as well as many Indian names and misspellings. An anecdote from the exhibits coordinator was that only a third of the population at the time considered itself a patriot; which would mean that, essentially, the US defeated the British with support from only a fraction of the population.

Pictured is Benjamin Tallmadge, the creator of the Culper Spy Ring. Washington approached Tallmadge with the task of creating a spy force to be able to feed information from New York – where the British were occupied – back to Washington, wherever he was at the time. Tallmadge recruited childhood friends to be members of the spy ring because they were people he knew could be trusted. Tallmadge also went the extra step to ensure the safety of his staff by providing aliases for each and every person involved as well as creating a code by which they would communicate messages.

After visiting the Spies! Exhibit we took a short drive to Port Jeff where we ate short lunch and learned a brief history of Port Jeff. Port Jeff is a protected deep sea harbor which made it ideal for many of the whaling and ship building activities that were prevalent in the 19th Century. Back then, Port Jeff was the hub of ship building, whereas now Port Jeff is much more of a tourist community. If you look closely, in the background is the Seawolf, one of Stony Brook’s vessels!

Spies Museum
by Jennifer Stahl

November 4th 2016 our Class took a trip from Southampton to Setauket to visit the Three Village Historical Society. We had a wonderful tour guide that showed us the history of this country and gave us more background on the Revolutionary war. Being from Long Island what caught my attention was the Battle of Brooklyn/Long Island.

The picture of the map above shows the geography of where the British and the Americans started to battle. The battle of Long Island/ Brooklyn came about because there was conflict in Boston Massachusetts between the British and the Americans. Washington forced the British out by bringing cannon from upstate, the British felt threatened so they moved to Canada with the plan to take over New York Harbor. The British landed on Staten Island while Washington and is men landed in NYC, the battle took place in Brooklyn. One of many reasons why they were fighting was because the British took over the Hudson upstate NY which blocked colonies from communicating to other colonies. Washington knew they weren’t going to win against the British so he came up with a new plan; a plan to hire spies.

Setauket
by John DiMarzo

On Friday, we visited the Culper Spy Exhibit at the Setauket Historical Society. The exhibit was based on the history of Long Island, and specifically Setauket, as the home to the most organized spy ring in the Revolutionary War, its major accomplishment being the prevention of a British attack on the allied French fleet. The confirmed members of the spy ring were all men, but there is one unconfirmed member rumored to have operated out of Strong’s Neck in Setauket.

Anna Smith Strong had six children, and was of the upper class in the colonies. Her husband, a patriot, had fled from their home in Setauket to Connecticut, and their original house was seized by the British, but for some unknown reason, Anna stayed behind in a smaller cottage with the children. It is speculated that she provided a beacon to Abraham Woodhull regarding the presence and location of his courrier, Caleb Brewster. Brewster would bring his coaster into one of six coves in Little Bay, and hide to wait for Woodhull to bring messages. Where Smith Strong’s speculated role comes in is in the form of a signal to Woodhull. Supposedly, she would hang a petticoat on her clothesline when brewster was there, and then 1-6 smaller cloths to disclose which cove he had decided to take refuge in.

Communication in the Culper spy ring cannot be taken for granted, as it was not as easy as stopping at one’s house to pick up a message. The Quartering Acts had granted British officers the right to stay in colonial homes and survey as they pleased, so any activity between colonials regarding the exchange of information might raise suspicion. The consequences of such activity had already been exemplified in the case of Nathan Hale. Though it was never documented or spoken of by Smith Strong or any of the other members of the ring, some ancestors of the speculated spy believe the stories are definitely true, as they have been passed down through generations orally.

Spies, Lies & Battle Cries
by Maria Grima

On 4 November 2016, Semester by the Sea went to visit the Three Village Historical Society Headquarters in Seatuaket. Here we took a tour of the museum, and learned about the significant roles Long Island and those who lived here played during the Revolutionary War. Wouldn’t ya know it, one of our biggest contributions was…… (you guessed it)….

Our Spy Ring!!!

Prior to this excursion, I never realized how obsessed George Washington was with spies. It all makes sense now; why less than 1/3 of our small colonial population was able to purge out the well-established, world power Mother England.

James L. holding up the book George Washington’s Secret Six, recommended to us by our lovely tour guide.

SoMAS Students diligently listening to the theories surrounding Long Island’s Spy History. Closet to farthest: Chris M, Alexandra B, James M, John, Helena N

Pete L looking super fly next to our revolution-leading, spy loving president, George Washington.

Our tour guide telling us her passion for looking at old maps, and enjoying the broad perspective they offer. What she enjoys about them over modern GPS systems is how you can see the whole perspective of the area at all times. (She also has the guilty pleasure of finding misspellings in location names).

Chris W lurking about, pretending to eavesdrop the conversations of British soldiers in a tavern he owns.

Did you know that the Patriots were able to stop the British from attacking their French backup because of spying on drunken redcoats at bars? This was invaluable contribution of the spy ring; without the Patriots learning of this plan, the French troops would have been taken out and unable to give us the support we needed to win the war.

A collection of quotes found around the museum: