Anna Lloyd Strong

<http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~havens5/p37350.htm>

Anna was born on 14 April 1740.

Anna Smith married Selah Strong iii, son of Selah Strong Jr. and Hannah Woodhull, 1760. 9 children are recorded in the family bible for this couple.

Revolutionary War Spies

ANNA SMITH STRONG, the great grand-daughter of Colonel William [Tangier] Smith devised, according to family folklore, a wash line signal system to identify for Abraham Woodhull the whereabouts of Caleb Brewster's Whaleboat, so that Woodhull could find him and pass along the messages meant for General Washington.

To avoid detection by the British it was necessary for Brewster to hide his boat in six different places, each identified by a number. "Nancy" Strong, as she was known by friends and neighbors, hung her laundry from the line in a code formation to direct Woodhull to the correct location. A black petticoat was the signal that Brewster was nearby, and the number of handkerchiefs scattered among the other garments on the line showed the meeting place. Using the most ordinary of personal items and improvising on the most ordinary of personal tasks, "Nancy" made an extraordinary contribution to the cause of freedom.

Anna Strong was alone on Strong's Neck throughout most of the war. Her husband, Selah Strong, was confined on the British prison ship "Jersey" in 1778 for "Surreptitious correspondence with the enemy." She got permission to bring him food, which evidently saved his life and she obtained his release by appealing to her Tory relatives. He was still in danger and spent the rest of the war in Connecticut, taking their children with him.

While British officers luxuriated in the Manor House [no longer standing - a 19th century Manor replaced it], "Nancy" lived in a small cottage across the Bay from Woodhull's farm, staying there to also protect her family's rights to the estate. After the war Anna & Selah were reunited and Selah led Washington's carriage and party to the Roe Tavern in April of 1790 when the then President Washington made his tour of Long Island. Nancy died in 1812 and Selah in 1815. They are buried in the Smith-Strong family graveyard along Cemetery Road on Strong's Neck.

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<http://aphdigital.org/projects/culperspyring/strong>

Anna Smith Strong (1740-1812)

Anna Smith Strong was descended from colonial elites, and closely related to the other Culper Spy Ring members. Her husband was a leading Patriot judge, and their family controlled one of Long Island's manors, ancestral estates, much like those in England or certain Southern plantations. Most of the Long Island Manors were basically plantations, complete with slavery, in the early part of the 18th century. The status that accompanied both Anna's home and her husband's political appointment made her family a target of the occupying British soldiers.

Anna's husband Judge Selah Strong was arrested and imprisoned on the prison ships in New York harbor. Family lore claims Anna's wealthy Tory relatives helped Anna negotiate the parole of her husband. These relatives probably including Colonel Benjamin Floyd, who may have also assisted the Culper Spy Ring with emergency dispatches. During the Revolutionary War, prisoner exchanges organized by the armies were rare contentious events, and private citizens were often far more successful, particularly when dealing with social elites who had status and family members willing to pay bail or bribe money. In the Strong family's case, Anna was able to bribe British officials to parole her husband to Connecticut, where he stayed for the remainder of the war with most of his family.

Anna Smith Strong stayed behind to take care of the family home at Strong's Neck. Many women did this during the Revolution, since they were seen as non-combatants, and empty homes were subjected to greater abuse and destruction. However, with British soldiers in Setauket, Anna and her isolated home on Strong' s Neck were constantly at the mercy of the occupying army's temper.

Despite this, it is believed Anna Smith Strong used her the arrangement of laundry on her clothesline to signal the presence of Caleb Brewster, who may have also hidden on her property. Strong is not really referred to in the dispatches, although there are several references to her property and what the British movements around her home are. There is nothing to contradict her story, and when Washington toured Long Island in 1790, he visited with the rest of the Culper Spy Ring and included Anna Strong's family in his visits.

More documentation is needed to be certain of her role, but evidence only seems to support the local and family history claiming her role in the spy ring. Additionally, a British spy known as "Hiram the Spy" wrote about a woman who lived near Setauket working with the American spies in the area, which matched the description of Strong.

After the war, Anna and Selah were reunited, and they had another child named George Washington Strong. Their home survived the war safely, and the Strong Family remained there. Anna died in 1812 and is buried in the graveyard on Strong's Neck
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<http://www.annasmithstrongchapter-nsdar.org> Anna Smith Strong Chapter, National Society of Daughters of American Revolution Setauket, Long Island, New York

The Anna Smith Strong Chapter was named for a courageous member of the celebrated Culper Spy Ring, based in Setauket, Long Island, New York, during the American Revolution. The chapter name proudly commemorates the role of Anna Smith Strong.

Anna Smith Strong (1740 - 1812) was the loving wife of the Honorable Judge Selah Strong, III. The Strong family lived on the north shore of Long Island, New York, now known as Strong's Neck. Their family farm extended to the Devil's Belt, today known as Long Island Sound.

Anna's husband was imprisoned during the Revolution for "surreptitious correspondence with the enemy," confined to the Jersey, a British prison ship, in 1778. During her husband's imprisonment, it is believed Anna would bring him food and through her family connections was able to negotiate Judge Strong's release. It is believed that after his release, Judge Strong went to Connecticut.

Anna stayed alone on the family farm during the Revolution, where she quietly assisted with General Washington's Culper Spy Ring. It is Long Island folklore that Anna's assignment was to signal the arrival of Caleb Brewster, who would row periodically across the Devil's Belt to retrieve the spy ring's messages. Anna accomplished this signaling by means of a homespun device that fooled all wisdom with its simplicity.

Anna would take her laundry out to the tip of Strong's Neck and hang her black petticoat along with handkerchiefs scattered throughout her wash. This was a signal to chief spy Abraham Woodhull. By counting the white handkerchiefs, Woodhull knew that Caleb Brewster, a blacksmith and boatman, was in town. The number of handkerchiefs would indicate which of the six coves Caleb's boat was hidden in. Abraham then contacted Caleb in order to pass along the secret messages he received from another spy ring member, Robert Townsend.

Townsend's messages were brought to Woodhull by a Setauket tavern owner and horseman, Austin Roe, who rode at least weekly to New York City for supplies. After adding his own observations, Woodhull passed the messages to Brewster.

At night after retrieving the intelligence report, Brewster would row past British guard boats and cross the Devil's Belt to Connecticut. There, Brewster kept crews and boats for the cross-sound relay. From Fairfield, a courier on a fast horse would take the report to Major Benjamin Tallmadge, who would then hand it to the first of a series of riders stationed fifteen miles apart on the route to wherever General Washington's headquarters happened to be. 


Anna and her husband were reunited after the war. She is buried on Strong's Neck in the family cemetery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Strong_(spy)

Anna Smith Strong (April 14, 1740 – August 12, 1812) of Setauket, New York, was an American Patriot and a member of the Culper Spy Ring during the American Revolution.

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 was described in an 1839 book by Benjamin Franklin Thompson on the history of Long Island as "a lady of much amiability and worth."

Strong's husband, Selah Strong (December 25, 1737 - July 4, 1815), was related through his mother Hannah to General Nathaniel Woodhull and Abraham Woodhull, the "Samuel Culper Sr." of the Culper Ring of American spies during the revolutionary war. Selah was a delegate to the first three provincial congresses in New York, which convened on May 22 and December 6 in 1775 and in May of 1776. He also was a captain in the New York militia in 1776. According to Rivington's Gazette of January 3, 1778, Selah Strong was imprisoned in the sugar house at New York City as a presumed spy. Family tradition has him later imprisoned on the prison ship HMS Jersey. Later works mention only his imprisonment on the prison ship. Tradition says 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 in Long Island.

The Strongs' children were Keturah (a daughter), James Woodhull, Thomas, Margaret, Benjamin, Mary, William Smith, Joseph, George Washington, and another Joseph. Mary and the first Joseph both died young, while Thomas later became a judge.

Formation of the Culper Ring

On August 25, 1778, Continental Army Major Benjamin Tallmadge convinced General George Washington that Abraham Woodhull of Setauket on Long Island would make a good agent to gather intelligence in New York City, the British Army's headquarters and base of operations during the American Revolutionary War. For a short time, Washington continued to support Tallmadge's superior Brigadier General Charles Scott as chief of intelligence. Contrary to Tallmadge, Scott favored single missions by agents, usually officers, across enemy lines.

After the failure of one of Scott's intelligence missions to New York City—during which three Continental Army officers were discovered and executed in September of 1778,—Washington gave Tallmadge the assignment to set up a network of spies and couriers in New York City. Scott soon went on furlough and was replaced by Tallmadge as chief of intelligence. In October 1778, Tallmadge started the New York City operation: Woodhull began to make trips into New York under the pretext of visits to his sister Mary, who operated a boarding house with her husband Amos Underhill. Woodhull's reports were written under the alias "Samuel Culper" (later "Samuel Culper Sr."); Tallmadge was called "John Bolton". On October 31, 1778, Woodhull was questioned threateningly at a British checkpoint. Woodhull hoped to pass on the work in New York to Amos Underhill but Underhill was unable to do make clear or useful reports. Woodhull was obliged to continue his visits, although he became increasingly anxious that he might be discovered as time passed.

In June 1779, Woodhull engaged Robert Townsend ("Samuel Culper, Jr.") to gather intelligence in New York City. Since Townsend was engaged in business there, his presence was expected to arouse less suspicion than Woodhull had. He also had access to British officers through the authorship of a society column in a Loyalist newspaper and his tailoring business, as well as his interest in a coffeehouse with Tory newspaper owner James Rivington, also a secret member of the ring.

A network was then established in which Townsend would pass intelligence to a courier, Jonas Hawkins or Austin Roe, who would take it 55 miles (89 km) to Setauket and pass it on to Woodhull, usually via dead drop. Woodhull would evaluate and comment on it and pass it to Caleb Brewster, who took it across Long Island Sound to Tallmadge, who would then usually add a cover letter with comments. Tallmadge found that personally taking the message to Washington was too time consuming, so he eventually began to send these reports to Washington via dragoons and then by relays of dragoons.

According to widely accepted local and family tradition, Anna Strong's role in the ring was to signal Brewster, who ran regular trips with whaleboats across the Sound on a variety of smuggling and military missions, that a message was ready. She did this by hanging a black petticoat on her clothesline at Strong Point in Setauket, which was easily visible by Brewster from a boat in the Sound and by Woodhull from his nearby farm after he began to operate almost exclusively from home. She would add a number of handkerchiefs for one of six coves where Brewster 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 had a woman at Setauket who fit Anna's profile under suspicion for disloyal activities.

Missions to New York

Woodhull had to continue to visit New York for meetings with Townsend, who occasionally needed to be encouraged to continue his work or to discuss instructions or information. In October 1779, Woodhull was attacked by four armed men who searched his clothes, shoes and saddle but did not find the letter from Townsend that he was carrying. Woodhull told Tallmadge that this occurred and asked him to keep it secret so that others in the ring would not be intimidated. He also wrote to Tallmadge that he would soon be visiting New York again and "...by the assistance of a 355 [lady] of my acquaintance, shall be able to outwit them all."

Historians Alexander Rose and Mark Anthony Phelps write that the lady identified only as "a 355", 355 being Tallmadge's substitution code for "lady", was Anna Strong. Men traveling alone might come under suspicion as spies and be stopped and searched but a man traveling with a wife drew less suspicion and might not even be stopped, much less searched. Anna 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 possible. Her main service on their trips would have been to divert attention from Woodhull.

Work with Brewster

On one of his trips to Setauket, Brewster was waiting for Woodhull in Strong's back garden. While waiting, he surprised a passing British lieutenant, pulled him off his horse and had the opportunity to capture or kill him. He refrained from doing so in order to avoid drawing suspicion on Anna by leaving the impression that Brewster and his men were thieves.

On February 4, 1781, the double agent, or simple self-dealing mercenary, William Heron told British intelligence chief Major Oliver De Lancey of the Seventeenth Light Dragoons that private dispatches were being sent from New York City by some traitors to Seutaket "where a certain Brewster received them near a certain woman's." Since the British were never able to catch Brewster and get him to disclose the woman's name, Anna's identity remained secret.

Aftermath

Selah Strong was on Washington's list of persons to be reimbursed for expenses that they incurred in connection with their activities for the Culper Ring. Rose and Phelps state that the reimbursement must have been for expenses incurred by Anna since Selah was imprisoned for much of the relevant time period.

After the war, Selah Strong was a state senator in New York between 1792 and 1800 and a member of Council of Appointment in 1794. He was the first judge of Suffolk County between 1783 and 1793 and county treasurer between 1786 and 1802. He was a supervisor between 1784 and 1794 and President of Board of Trustees of Brookhaven, 1780-1797 (1780 is almost certainly a typo for a later date).

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

In AMC's Revolutionary War spy thriller period drama series, TURИ, based on Alexander Rose's historical book Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring (2007),Heather Lind plays Anna Strong.

• Reference: FamilySearch Family Tree - SmartCopy: Sep 30 2020, 23:29:27 UTC