Patriot Spy Anna Strong
Anna Smith Strong (1740 – 1812) of Setauket, New York, played an important role in the Culper Spy Ring – the Americans’ most important espionage network. The ring’s leader, Abraham Woodhull, frequently traveled to New York City under the cover of his occupation as a farmer delivering produce, or to visit his sister, who lived in the city. While in New York, he gathered information about British units in the city, their dispositions, and any news he overheard from talkative Loyalists and British officers.
Close questioning by inquisitive British soldiers during one of those visits drove home to Woodhull the dangerousness of what he was doing. To reduce his exposure and the frequency of his travel, he began leaning more on recruiting spies in the city, using their reports instead of his personal observations. Anna Strong helped speed up the transmission of intelligence.
Woodhull gathered intelligence from New York City, and returned with it to Setauket on Long Island. He then delivered it to Caleb Brewster, a courier and smuggler who ran a whaleboat, who delivered it to Major Benjamin Tallmadge, who finally delivered it to George Washington. It was a time-consuming process that was eventually shortened by using couriers to collect the information in New York, and speedily get it to Setauket, 55 miles away.
Anna Strong, a neighbor and friend of Woodhull and Brewster, used her laundry as a code to coordinate between the duo when intelligence was ready to gather, and where it should be collected. When Brewster was in the area, ready to pick up Woodhull’s reports, Anna would hang a black petticoat in her laundry as a signal to Woodhull. Woodhull would then finish compiling a report, and stash it in a prearranged hiding spot in one of six coves near Setauket. Anna would then hang up white handkerchiefs to dry, their number corresponding to the number of the cove where Woodhull had stashed the report. Brewster would then go to the correct cove, pick up the report, and deliver it across the Long Island Sound.
