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The Underappreciated Nikola Tesla, and Other Under-Recognized Historic Figures

Khalid Elhassan January 12, 2020 32 min

Nikola Tesla - A New System of Alternating Current Motors and Transformers — Nikola Tesla. Pintrest

28. The Laundry Code

Anna Strong’s laundry. Wartime Spy Ladies

Abraham Woodhull gathered intelligence from NYC, and took it to Setauket on Long Island. He then delivered it to Caleb Brewster, a courier and smuggler who delivered it to Major Benjamin Tallmadge, who handed 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 used her laundry as a code to coordinate between Brewster and Woodhull. When Brewster was 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.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.