Anna Smith Strong (April 14, 1740 - August 12, 1812) of Setauket, New York was an American Patriot and an important member of the Culper Spy Ring during the American Revolution.
Video Anna Strong (spy)
Family
Anna's father was Colonel William Smith, son of Henry Smith and grandson of Colonel William Smith, a justice of the supreme court established in New York in 1691. He was clerk of Suffolk County, New York and judge of the Common Pleas court for the county for several years before the American Revolution. Anna's mother was Margaret Lloyd Smith, daughter of Henry Lloyd of Lloyd's Neck.
Anna married Selah Strong (December 25, 1737 - July 4, 1815) who was related to General Nathaniel Woodhull and Abraham Woodhull through his mother Hannah. Abraham was the "Samuel Culper" of the Culper Ring of American spies during the American Revolution. Selah was a delegate to the first three provincial congresses in colonial New York which convened on May 22, 1775, December 6, 1775, and May 1776. He also was a captain in the New York militia in 1776. He was imprisoned in the sugar house at New York City as a presumed spy, according to Rivington's Gazette of January 3, 1778. Family tradition has him later imprisoned on the prison ship HMS Jersey, Later works mention only his imprisonment on the prison ship, and that tradition claims that Anna brought him food. Author Ryan Ann Hunter states that Anna eventually got Selah paroled through the influence of Tory relatives. Upon his release, he spent the rest of the war in Connecticut with the family's younger children while Anna stayed on Long Island.
The Strongs' children were Keturah S. (who married James W. Woodhull), Thomas Shepherd, Margaret, Benjamin, Mary, William Smith, Joseph, George Washington, and another Joseph. Mary and the first Joseph both died young, while Thomas became a judge.
Maps Anna Strong (spy)
The Culper Ring
Continental Army Major Benjamin Tallmadge began working with Abraham Woodhull in the summer of 1778 at the height of the American Revolutionary War to create what became known as the Culper spy ring. According to tradition, Anna Strong's role in the ring was to relay signals to a courier who ran a whaleboat across Long Island Sound on smuggling and military missions. She did this by hanging a black petticoat on her clothesline at Strong Point in Setauket, which was easily visible from a boat in the Sound, and also by Woodhull from his nearby farm. She would add a number of handkerchiefs for one of six coves where the courier would bring his boat and Woodhull would meet him.
Historian Richard Welch writes that the tradition of the clothesline signal is unverifiable, but it is known that the British suspected a woman at Setauket who fit Anna's profile. Conversely, authors Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger suggest that she was an unlikely candidate to be the woman member of the Culper Ring. They claim that British law provided for lands to be confiscated if left abandoned, and they speculate that this forced Anna to remain on Long Island when her husband left for Connecticut. They further state that she had her children with her and her arrest would have left them parentless.
Woodhull wrote a message to Tallmadge to say that he would be visiting New York again and, "by the assistance of a [lady] of my acquaintance, shall be able to outwit them all." Several historians surmise that Anna Strong was the lady identified as "a 355" (Tallmadge's code for the word "lady"). She might have had her own reason to visit New York to visit her husband aboard the prison ship where he was confined and to bring him food. If she was the one referred to, her main service on their trips would have been to divert attention from Woodhull. Selah Strong was on Washington's list to be reimbursed for expenses incurred in connection with activities for the Culper Ring. Rose and Phelps speculate that the reimbursement must have been for expenses incurred by Anna, since Selah was imprisoned for much of the relevant time period.
No information has been found concerning Anna's activities after the end of the war other than that she and Selah lived quietly in Setauket for the rest of their lives. She died on August 12, 1812.
In popular culture
AMC's Revolutionary War period drama TURN: Washington's Spies was based on Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring (2007) by Alexander Rose. Heather Lind plays Anna Strong in the series.
See also
- Intelligence in the American Revolutionary War
- Intelligence operations in the American Revolutionary War
References
External links
Anna Strong at Find a Grave
Source of article : Wikipedia
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