Women's History Month 2023 - Anna Smith Strong

[Mrs. Smith]

Good evening, and welcome once again to the Project Appleseed Women's History Month series for 2023. This will be our last installment for this year, and we've decided to share with you the very clever Anna Smith Strong.



In August of 1776 the British occupied New York City, and the city would remain a British stronghold for the duration of the Revolutionary War. The Culper Spy Ring, also known as the Setauket Spy Ring, was a group of operatives whose purpose was to inform General George Washington of the movements of the British in New York City and Long Island, the supplies they had, and the plans they were making. Once a week, one of the spies rowed a whaleboat past the British ships and into New York to retrieve the information and take it back to General Washington. The information was hidden in a small wooden box placed at one of five designated spots, each one hidden in a cove off the bay. But which cove?

Anna Smith Strong's assignment in the Culper Ring was to signal the arrival and location of the message. Anna Strong's manor house was in the perfect spot for her to see all five of the coves. By just strolling around her yard on a designated day and time, she could determine which one of the five coves held the hidden box of spy secrets. Anna could signal to the spy in the whaleboat that the information was ready to be picked up and even tell him in which cove it was hidden.

Anna Strong's backyard clothesline was strategically located on a point facing the mouth of the bay. When a message was ready to be retrieved, Anna let it be known by first hanging up a black petticoat on her clothesline. The black petticoat was the signal that the whaleboat spy should come into the bay. After that, Anna hung out white handkerchiefs. Each one of the coves was numbered, so all Anna had to do was to hang out the corresponding number of handkerchiefs on her clothesline. One white handkerchief meant that the message was waiting in cove number one, two meant cove number two, and so on.



Among the other techniques the spy ring used to relay messages included coded messages published in newspapers and using invisible ink to write between the lines of what appeared to be a typical letter. Secrecy was so strict that Washington himself did not know the identity of all the operatives, and the general public was not aware of the spy ring's existence.
Despite some strained relations within the group and constant pressure from Washington to send more information, the Culper Spy Ring achieved more than any other American or British intelligence network during the war.



SOURCES

https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2011/07/anna-smith-strong.html
https://historydaily.org/the-spy-who-hung-her-laundry/3