General Washington's spies on Long Island and in New York

by Morton Pennypacker

Certainly there are but few Americans to whom the name of Nathan Hale is not as familiar as a household word. Everybody has heard of that Martyr Spy and almost everybody knows his life story. A graduate of Yale College in 1773 he became a school teacher[1] and more, a patriot, in every sense the word implies. He enjoyed his work as a pedagogue but his country’s call was irresistible. Soon he was captain of a Company and on Long Island he received from the British his Baptism of fire. Then illness caused him to wonder if after all to him would come the privilege of rendering worth while service. Can it not be said he hoped, or better he prayed that he might be useful, and then, sooner than he expected, he was called to render an unusual service. There was no reckless haste in his decision. He considered well the hazard of the work he had been asked to do. It was more than to report the position of the British Army. It was to discover their intentions, and to report his findings to General Washington.—A week later he was dead—and not a line from him had reached the Commander in Chief. His work was a magnificent failure but the spirit that prompted him to undertake it entitled him to the everlasting glory which is his.

Hale’s was an unnecessary sacrifice that more careful planning might have prevented, but as yet there was no time for organized effort, and for some months no better method was devised than to entrust some officer to get what was needed, either by the capture of prisoners or by sending a trusted man into the enemy’s camp. Upon these latter occasions individuals were met with who seemed anxious to be of service. Among them were two men later to be known as Culper Junior and Senior. Certain officers, particularly General Chas. Scott, became popular with General Washington because of their ability to locate these men and to get from them intelligence that could be relied upon. It will be seen that they later formed the Secret Service Bureau that was so helpful to General Washington all through the Revolutionary War.

This organized service differed from that of Hale’s time in that it became a business with the men who conducted it, and enabled them usually to have some one who could get the information when they feared they were suspected or for any other reason they believed it too hazardous to undertake themselves. It is remarkable that although their lives were every moment in danger so carefully were their secrets guarded that not only to the end of the war but for a hundred and fifty years thereafter, in spite of frequent efforts to discover their identity the real men were never suspected. Primarily this was due to the caution of the men themselves, each declaring that if to any one other than those of their own selection they should learn that their names were known they would leave the service and never return; but it was also due to the care of General Washington in exacting from all who knew them the most solemn pledge that not to any one at any time or under any circumstances would they reveal their identity. It is interesting at this day to observe the fear they had that their handwriting might betray them, and to note that although they practiced several styles of writing with the intention of concealing their real hand nevertheless it was finally this that first enabled positive identification. It will also be discovered that although those in the Secret Service requested that the letters they were sending for General Washington should be destroyed the majority of them were preserved by him, and that on the contrary with one exception the letters from General Washington to the Culpers were promptly destroyed by them in order that they should not be betrayed thereby if searched. That the contents of so many of the letters to the members of the Secret Service from General Washington is known is due to his system of saving copies of them and these as a rule are in the handwriting of the General himself.

Long before the Culpers were requested to do their own writing both furnished intelligence, and it is not possible to say which was first so engaged. Culper Senior had made his fourteenth written report when Culper Junior’s first was sent, but most of Senior’s information was furnished by Junior, and probably Scott had it from him before Senior had attempted it. Their work did not end with the closing days of 1783 but General Washington’s temporary retirement occasioned them to look to others who may have been less careful in preserving the records. After the war Culper Senior was from 1799 to 1810 First Judge of Suffolk County but Junior never accepted any important political position, although Oliver Templeton, a leader among the business men of the day, wrote to Culper’s brother when in 1789 it was announced that his father had been made a member of the Council of Appointment, saying: “I am informed your father is one of the Council of Appointment. For God’s sake if that is the case, write your father immediately not to forget his sons. I am afraid for the opportunity he may have too much modesty.... Your Brother Robert is fitted for any office.” He wielded an influence however that was almost uncanny. No one knew the real patriots in the City of New York at the close of the war as he did and much that seemed mysterious at the time can be traced to him, for besides Washington and Tallmadge, Alexander Hamilton, Richard Varick and several others were familiar with his handwriting and gave weight to his suggestions and opinions.

Publication of “The Two Spies, Nathan Hale and Robert Townsend”[2] by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1930 revealed for the first time the names of those in the secret service employed by General Washington. It was discovered that Culper Senior was Abraham Woodhull[3] of Setauket, Long Island, and that Culper Junior was Robert Townsend of Oyster Bay. It was Robert Townsend who remained in New York City from the beginning of the war until and after its close. Culper Junior was the man whose identity every historian from Judge William Smith to those at the present day was trying to discover. Smith was a co-worker with him and at times they would both hand communications to James Rivington for his newspaper at the same moment, but Smith never guessed that Townsend was General Washington’s Culper Junior. Jared Sparks later went to the greatest pains to try to identify him, begging those who he knew could tell him if they would, but no one at any time was willing to break the pledge by revealing his identity. To prevent any misunderstanding as to Rivington’s part in the Secret Service a brief sketch of him here seems necessary.

James Rivington was the son of Charles and Eleanor Rivington. He was born in 1724. Was twice married, his second wife being Elizabeth Van Horne of New York, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. A brother was John, with whom he was in partnership in the publishing business in London until 1756, when he joined James Fletcher, son of the bookseller of Oxford. Their most successful venture was Smollett’s History of England, upon which they cleared ten thousand pounds, the largest profit then known to have been made on any single work. A growing love for horse-racing and gambling possessed him until most of his money was gone. He then came to America and settled as a bookseller in Philadelphia in 1760. The following year he opened a book store at the lower end of Wall Street in New York. Then in 1762 he commenced bookselling in Boston, where he failed. In 1764 he was in Bermuda, where he opened a printing office for a short time. He soon returned to New York where in April, 1773, he began “Rivington’s New York Gazetteer.” By 1775 the matter he permitted to appear in the Gazetteer was so offensive to the Sons of Liberty that on May 10th his office and home were mobbed and he with Miles Cooper was obliged to seek refuge on a British man-of-war in the harbor. Although his plant was damaged his assistants were able to continue the paper whilst he petitioned the Continental Congress, saying:

“It is his wish and ambition to be an useful member of society. Although an Englishman by birth, he is an American by choice, and he is desirous of devoting his life in the business of his profession, to the service of the Country he has adopted for his own. He lately employed no less than sixteen workmen, at near one thousand pounds annually: and his consumption of printing paper, the manufacture of Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay, has amounted nearly to that sum. His extensive foreign correspondence, his large acquaintance in Europe and America, and the manner of his education, are circumstances which, he conceives, have not improperly qualified him for the situation in which he wishes to continue, and in which he will exert every endeavour to be useful.”

However, before the close of the year, on November 23d, 1775, his plant was again mobbed. This time under Colonel Sears’s directions the presses were ruined and the type all carried away to later be melted into bullets. Rivington then went to England, but returned to New York in 1777, now as the king’s printer with a Royal commission and a grant of £100. per annum. He brought with him new machinery and type and began republishing his paper on October 4th of that year. He also had received commissions from several publishers to supply them with the news of British activities in this country. Several have stated that Rivington was permitted to remain in New York after the close of the Revolution; for example, in the news from Springfield, Mass., published in the Salem (Mass.) Gazette, December 25th, 1783, it was reported as “an undoubted fact Mr. Rivington, publisher, of New York was, as soon as our troops entered the city, protected in person, and property, by a guard and that he will be allowed to reside in the country, for reasons best known to the great men at helm.” But most have neglected to show that his treatment was worse than exile. A rival publisher in his issue of January 1st, 1784, says: “Yesterday Rivington, who has had the audacity to continue his obnoxious publications was waited on by General John Lamb, Colonel Willett and Colonel Sears, and forbid the prosecution of any further business in this city, in consequence of which, he has discharged his hands, and obeyed the order. To the joy of every one in the United States, Jemmy Rivington’s political existence terminated last Wednesday, the 31st ulto. [1783].”

Personal injury was soon to be added to insult, for on the 11th of the same month Nicholas Cruger gave him a violent beating, claiming he had suffered in prison during the war because of statements made by Rivington’s paper.

Rivington had a caller in 1794 in the person of Henry Wansey, who wrote in his Journal: “June 23d, I dined with James Rivington, the bookseller, formerly of St. Pauls Churchyard; he is still a cheerful old man, and enquired of me for Mr. Collins, and Mr. Baston, and many of his quandam acquaintances in England. During the time the British kept possession of New York, he printed a newspaper for them, and opened a kind of coffee-house for the officers; his house was a great place of resort; he made a great deal of money during that period, though many of the officers quitted it considerably in arrears to him.”