The Culper Spy Ring: Was There a Spy in Bayside?

In the struggle for American independence, victory was never guaranteed. While muskets fired and armies marched, another battle unfolded in the shadows, fought with secrets, information, and trust. George Washington understood that knowing what the British were planning could be just as important as fighting the battle of the day. In 1778, he appointed Major Benjamin Tallmadge to organize a spy network to gather intelligence in British-occupied New York.

Through the work of this network, which became known as the Culper Spy Ring, information gathered by the spies passed through a chain of trusted individuals before reaching General Washington. Mainstays of spycraft — false names, coded messages, and invisible ink — protected both the intelligence and those who carried it. Even Washington himself didn't know the names of the spies involved.

The ring's leader, Tallmadge (who went by the code name "John Bolton"), assigned pseudonyms to his informants and devised a numerical substitution system of 763 numbers that were used to identify spies and important players, key words, and locations (for instance, 711 for General Washington, 727 for New York, 732 for Staten Island, and so on). The codes were collected in a dictionary that Tallmadge sent to Washington, and some of the ring's messages were written in invisible ink.

In addition to Tallmadge/Bolton, members of the ring included Abraham Woodhull (aka "Samuel Culper Sr.") of Setauket, Long Island; Robert Townsend (aka "Samuel Culper Jr.") of Oyster Bay, although he was often in New York, where he had a shipping firm; and Continental Army officer Caleb Brewster (code number 725) of Setauket.

Benjamin Tallmadge (a.k.a. "John Bolton"), Culper spy ring code book, 1778–1783. George Washington Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

While the ring was based around Setauket, the group made use of helpers and informants throughout New York, including, by some reports, in Bayside — specifically, Joseph Lawrence, a sea captain, who purchased 160 acres of farmland in Bayside in 1775. Lawrence was a great-great-grandson of William Lawrence, an original patentee of Flushing.

Morton Pennypacker's 1930 paper, "The Two Spies: Nathan Hale and Robert Townsend," linked, for the first time, the code name "Samuel Culper Jr." to Oyster Bay resident Robert Townsend. His 1939 book, General Washington's Spies, states that helpful intelligence from merchant William T. Robinson reached the spies through one Joseph Lawrence, who happened to be married to Phebe Townsend, a relative of Townsend's.

The Culper network operated for about five years, gathering intelligence Washington used to track British movements, plans, and strategy. Yet some of those who made this possible remained unknown for generations. Joseph Lawrence belongs to that quieter history. His story reminds us that some of the most important contributions to the cause of the Revolution were meant to remain invisible.