Anna Smith Strong

Date of Birth

April 14, 1740

Place of Birth

Setauket, Suffolk County, New York

Date of Death

August 12, 1812

Place of Death

Setauket, Suffolk County, New York

Spouse(s)

Selah Strong

Children

Keturah, Thomas Shepard, Margaret, Benjamin Franklin, William Smith, Joseph, George Washington, 2 others died in infancy

American Revolution Service

Member of the Culper Spy Ring

State of Service

New York

Donor

The members of Lighthouse Point Chapter, Florida State Society, NSDAR

Anna Smith Strong was a courageous member of the celebrated Culper Spy Ring, based in Setauket, Long Island, New York, during the American Revolution.

Anna’s husband Selah Strong was a captain in the New York militia. In 1778 the British imprisoned him in New York City on the HMS Jersey as a presumed spy. During her husband’s imprisonment, Anna would bring him food and was able to negotiate his release through her family connections. After his release, Selah Strong went to Connecticut where he spent the rest of the war with their younger children.

Back of Anna and Selah’s Monuments, looking out toward where Anna likely hung her clothesline to signal Abraham Woodhull, who lived across the water, that a message arrived from Caleb Brewster regarding movement of British troops. Courtesy of Rita Newman.

Selah Strong (Anna’s husband) left; Anna Smith Strong, right. Courtesy of Rita Newman.

Anna Smith Strong, Revolutionary War Patriot. Courtesy of Rita Newman.

Grave marking of Selah Strong. Courtesy of Rita Newman.

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A black petticoat indicated that a message was ready to be picked up, and the number of white handkerchiefs identified the cove on Long Island Sound where Woodhull and Brewster would meet.

Anna remained alone on the family farm during the American Revolution, where she assisted with General Washington’s Culper Spy Ring.

Continental Army Major Benjamin Tallmadge began working with Abraham Woodhull in the summer of 1778 at the height of the Revolutionary War to provide Washington information on British Army operations in their headquarters in New York City. Members of the Spy Ring gathered and passed information between autumn 1778 and the British evacuation of New York in 1783.

Anna Strong’s role in the ring was to relay signals to a courier named Caleb Brewster, who would row periodically across Long Island Sound to retrieve the information uncovered and take it to Major Tallmadge in Connecticut.

Anna would take her laundry out to the tip of Seaton’s Neck where her clothesline was easily visible from a boat in the Sound, and also visible to Woodhull at his nearby farm. A black petticoat indicated that a message was ready to be picked up, and the number of white handkerchiefs identified the cove on Long Island Sound where Woodhull and Brewster would meet.

The Culper Spy Ring achieved more than any other intelligence network during the war. In 1780, they uncovered British plans to ambush the newly arrived French Army in Rhode Island. They also uncovered information involving the secret negotiations between Benedict Arnold and the British to surrender the American fort at West Point, New York, in return for money and a command in the British Army.