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Spy agent ear7/9/2023 ![]() ![]() Tallmadge also devised an extensive code that substituted numbers for certain words-763 in total, along with a jumbled alphabet key so the spies could spell out terms that weren’t already given a number. Most of the operatives had aliases: Tallmadge was John Bolton Woodhull was Samuel Culper and Townsend was Samuel Culper, Jr. Certain Culper spies took regular trips to Manhattan to glean intel, while others ferried their letters to Tallmadge in Fairfield, Connecticut, where they’d get forwarded to Washington himself. Robert Townsend, a merchant from Oyster Bay, was another major player. Many of Tallmadge’s recruits were friends and acquaintances from Setauket, including his boyhood pal Abraham Woodhull, sailor Caleb Brewster, and tavern owner Austin Roe. ( Culper was a truncation of Culpeper, a Virginia county where a teenaged Washington had once worked.) ![]() Tallmadge was from Setauket, a small village on Long Island, and it was there that he established his Culper Spy Ring. In November 1778, more than three years into the Revolutionary War, George Washington tasked Major Benjamin Tallmadge with forming a secret service that could spy on British operations in New York City. A 1790 portrait of Benjamin Tallmadge and his son, William, painted by Ralph Earl. ![]()
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