Revolution 250 Podcast
Revolution 250 Podcast
George Washington's Long Island Spy Ring
Agents, double-agents, spies, secret messages, codes, cyphers are the words that evoke the world of intelligence gathering, a necessary tool for the success of any army. George Washington knew better than anyone the value of knowing what your enemy's plans were and to prevent them, if at all possible, from learning your own plans. Amazingly there are still many sites associated with the Culper Spy Ring that you can visit. Bill Bleyer, journalist and historian, tells us about his book, George Washington's Long Island Spy Ring: A History and Tour Guide.
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Hello, everyone.
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Welcome to the Revolution 250 podcast.
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I am Bob Allison.
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I chair the Rev 250 advisory group.
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We are a collaboration among
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75 groups in Massachusetts,
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planning ways to
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commemorate the beginnings
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of American independence.
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And our guest today is Bill Blyer.
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Bill is a journalist,
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spent much of his career at Newsday,
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as well as, again, it's been an editor,
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been a reporter,
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and still a freelance journalist.
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also has become an historian
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and he's written a great
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book george washington's
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long island spy ring a
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history and tour guide so
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bill thanks for joining us
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thank you bob so can you
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tell us a bit about who the
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you know why there's a spy
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ring on long island during
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the american revolution um
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basically it was um
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a group of friends in
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Setauket out on the North
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Shore of Suffolk County who
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are ardent patriots and
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basically had the right
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people in the right place.
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You know,
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George Washington always
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complained that it wasn't the right place,
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but it worked.
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They tried to go other routes,
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but there was just a lot of
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Tories in the town,
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but there was this core
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group of patriots and they
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all decided to get involved.
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You know, it was
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sort of the ringleader was
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uh benjamin talmadge if you
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can see his picture here he
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was the son of one of the
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local clergymen he enlisted
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in the continental army in
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a cavalry unit from
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connecticut because most of
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the patriots fled long
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island after the battle of
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long island to go to new
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england and many of them
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served in the continental
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army so talmadge becomes
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the washington spy master
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pulls it all together and uh
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That's why Setauket becomes
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the base for all of this.
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Okay.
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So how would they operate?
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They're trying to get
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intelligence from the
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British to Washington.
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So how would all of this,
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how would this network work?
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It was complicated and very time-consuming,
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and Washington complained
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throughout the war that it
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was too time-consuming
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because the information
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they got was extremely
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detailed and valuable,
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but it often got there so
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late that Washington couldn't act on it.
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So the route, initially, you have...
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Abraham Woodhull was a
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farmer out in Setauket who
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knows the other players.
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And he would go into the
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city to try to gather information.
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And then he would rendezvous
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with another friend, Caleb Brewster,
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a ship captain,
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who would carry the
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information across Long
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Island Sound where Benjamin
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Talmadge would be waiting.
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And then he would take it to
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headquarters and give it to Washington.
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And this is a series of
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murals about the spy ring
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out in the Setauket school.
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Okay, wow.
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This one shows you Brewster
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getting information from,
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he's the one with the
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pantaloons on there.
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getting information from
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Woodhull the farmer to
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carried across the Sound to Talmadge.
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So in the beginning it would
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take literally about three
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weeks to make this
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circubinous route from
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Manhattan out to Setauket,
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which is 55 mile horseback ride.
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about a 20-mile row or sail
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across the Sound to Talmadge,
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you would then have to ride
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to wherever headquarters
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was north or northwest of the city.
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Eventually,
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they got this down to about a
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week to 10 days,
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but Washington still wasn't
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happy with the length of time.
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Now, it must have been dangerous.
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I mean,
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were any of these guys captured
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while they were bringing information?
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None of them were captured.
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Some of the letters were intercepted,
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the spy letters.
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And in one incidence,
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the British knew this was
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going on and tried to intercept it,
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as they show in turn,
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but they turn it around inside out.
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Colonel Simcoe from the
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Queen's Rangers actually
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goes out to Setauket to try to capture
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uh woodhull at one point
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because the tories out
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there suspected he was a
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spy um uh in one case so
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the brit the british would
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actually do whale boat
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raids themselves across the
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sound uh to try to capture
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uh couriers and at one
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point they raided
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talmadge's camp he was on
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his way from the rendezvous
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uh with brewster on his way
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back to headquarters a british
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force came across in whale
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boats raided his camp
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scattered the americans
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talmadge escaped and the
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other people with him
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escaped because a local
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militia unit was heard the
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alarm and came to their
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rescue but not before
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talmadge's horse was
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captured along with
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everything in the camp
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there was a spy letter in
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the saddlebag but luckily
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at this point they were
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using code so there was no
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long lasting effect other
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than george washington
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scolding talmadge to be more careful
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wow well um now you
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mentioned the series turn
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um I know you have views on
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it it gets a lot of people
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excited about the period
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but you pointed out that it
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does turn a lot of things
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inside out and upside down
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Yeah, I mean,
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I wouldn't have written my
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book without TURN because
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it generated a lot of
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interest initially in 2014
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to 17 when it was on AMC
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and then Netflix picked it
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up and a whole new
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generation is watching it
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and people love it.
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But so many people like will
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post on Facebook on my pages and say, oh,
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I saw TURN,
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now I understand how the spy
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operation worked and I sort of groan.
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The other local historians
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who I rely on and trade information with
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And I have actually compiled
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a like parlor game list of
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all the factual inaccuracies in turn,
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which is on two single
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space pages so far and still growing.
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But, you know,
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my publisher came to me and said,
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you know, turn is so popular.
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Can you come up with a book
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on the spy ring?
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And I said, well,
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Alex Rose did the sort of
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Bible on the subject.
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Morton Pennypacker first
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wrote about it in a book
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that's highly inaccurate.
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Brian Kilmeade did a book
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that's highly inaccurate,
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but sold a million copies.
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So I said, I'm not sure what I could do.
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And then I came up with the
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idea of doing a combination
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of the aspiring story and
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also like a tour guide to
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all the sites in Long
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Island that were still there.
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And as I got into the research,
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I kept finding conflicts
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and myths that couldn't be substantiated.
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And finally decided to write
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an analytical story,
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which goes through
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everything that's been
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written by anybody and picks it apart,
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which makes my book unique.
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And as far as the historians I trust,
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the most accurate story of the spy ring,
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you know, yet by anybody.
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It's good to go back to turn
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just a couple of examples
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of what's wrong with it.
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Some of it's minor,
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like in the first half of the series,
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they show the Queens
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Rangers and Colonel Simcoe
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operating on Long Island
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wearing red coats.
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And anybody in the
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revolution knows the
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loyalist troops wore green
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through the series.
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Either Alex Rose that they
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hired as a consultant and
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then it mostly ignored.
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Or somebody pointed out that
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they had the wrong uniform.
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Don Troiana had done a great
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picture of Simcoe and the
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Queens Rangers wearing the proper green.
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So Mithrae,
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through the series with that explanation,
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the uniforms go to green.
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But there's a couple of
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things that are really crazy.
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In the first episode,
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you see Abraham Woodhull,
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the farmer who becomes the
00:07:20.579 --> 00:07:21.961
chief spy for the spy ring
00:07:22.620 --> 00:07:25.221
in a tavern with Anna Strong.
00:07:26.262 --> 00:07:27.223
Anna Strong is sort of the
00:07:27.242 --> 00:07:28.642
Martha Washington of Long
00:07:28.742 --> 00:07:30.584
Island or the spy ring era.
00:07:31.624 --> 00:07:32.644
She and her husband, Selah,
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were among the richest,
00:07:33.665 --> 00:07:35.425
biggest landowners on Long Island.
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They owned a big chunk of
00:07:37.646 --> 00:07:38.906
the North Shore of Suffolk County.
00:07:39.925 --> 00:07:40.406
But in turn,
00:07:40.447 --> 00:07:41.687
they show her serving drinks
00:07:41.726 --> 00:07:43.286
to people in a tavern in Setauket,
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which is like Martha
00:07:44.088 --> 00:07:45.687
Washington entertaining the
00:07:45.747 --> 00:07:47.528
locals in Mount Vernon in a tavern.
00:07:47.588 --> 00:07:48.428
It's preposterous.
00:07:49.790 --> 00:07:50.670
The other one that's
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preposterous is either the
00:07:53.173 --> 00:07:54.434
first or second episode,
00:07:55.295 --> 00:07:56.997
you see Colonel Simcoe from
00:07:57.016 --> 00:07:58.718
the Queens Rangers out in
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Setauket having tea with
00:08:01.401 --> 00:08:03.002
Woodhull's father, the local minister.
00:08:04.158 --> 00:08:05.800
and they portray Woodhull Sr.
00:08:06.420 --> 00:08:07.982
as an ardent loyalist
00:08:08.403 --> 00:08:09.684
complaining with Simcoe
00:08:09.744 --> 00:08:11.045
about his son's activity
00:08:11.084 --> 00:08:11.964
and how the patriots are
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ruining the country when in
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fact the elder Woodhull was
00:08:16.249 --> 00:08:17.689
as much of a patriot as his son.
00:08:18.449 --> 00:08:19.850
When Simcoe goes out to try
00:08:19.891 --> 00:08:21.512
to question Abraham and
00:08:21.533 --> 00:08:22.533
they can't find him because
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he's in the city gathering
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spy information,
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they grab the father and
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almost beat him to death
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trying to find out where his son is,
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which is very different
00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:32.961
than drinking tea with Simcoe.
00:08:33.761 --> 00:08:36.023
But there's a whole list of inaccuracies.
00:08:37.203 --> 00:08:37.384
Yeah.
00:08:38.203 --> 00:08:41.086
Now, how do you as an historian then?
00:08:41.105 --> 00:08:41.546
I mean,
00:08:41.605 --> 00:08:44.226
we have Morton Pennepacker and others,
00:08:44.287 --> 00:08:46.368
you know, telling the story in one way.
00:08:46.828 --> 00:08:48.509
Are you using different sources?
00:08:48.609 --> 00:08:48.828
I mean,
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how do you get at how does anyone
00:08:51.350 --> 00:08:53.052
really get at an accurate
00:08:53.331 --> 00:08:55.113
account of what happened
00:08:55.232 --> 00:08:57.333
when these guys aren't necessarily,
00:08:57.354 --> 00:08:57.953
you know,
00:08:59.168 --> 00:09:00.328
Maybe they are keeping journals,
00:09:00.369 --> 00:09:01.090
but they're not really
00:09:01.129 --> 00:09:02.211
posting reports about
00:09:02.291 --> 00:09:03.451
espionage activities.
00:09:03.993 --> 00:09:04.452
Or are they?
00:09:06.394 --> 00:09:06.615
No.
00:09:06.936 --> 00:09:08.778
All we know is the letters,
00:09:09.398 --> 00:09:10.139
the surviving letters.
00:09:10.178 --> 00:09:10.919
And they weren't supposed to
00:09:10.940 --> 00:09:11.980
be surviving letters.
00:09:15.856 --> 00:09:16.738
Woodhull in the city,
00:09:16.857 --> 00:09:17.658
Robert Townsend when he
00:09:17.697 --> 00:09:19.219
becomes the chief spy in the city.
00:09:19.239 --> 00:09:21.339
I'm sorry, Woodhull in Setauket,
00:09:22.120 --> 00:09:23.220
Robert Townsend in the city.
00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:25.760
In most of the surviving letters,
00:09:25.780 --> 00:09:26.500
you keep seeing this
00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:28.422
admonition to Washington
00:09:28.442 --> 00:09:29.402
and Talmadge to make sure
00:09:29.422 --> 00:09:30.582
you destroy these letters
00:09:31.543 --> 00:09:32.543
after you read them or
00:09:32.582 --> 00:09:33.604
decode them and read them.
00:09:34.203 --> 00:09:35.105
because they're very
00:09:35.144 --> 00:09:36.905
paranoid about being ended
00:09:36.966 --> 00:09:38.505
up on a gallows like Nathan Hale.
00:09:38.525 --> 00:09:39.466
Sure.
00:09:39.927 --> 00:09:40.827
For whatever reason,
00:09:40.908 --> 00:09:42.269
Washington and Talmadge, I guess,
00:09:42.288 --> 00:09:43.249
do it a lot in the beginning,
00:09:43.288 --> 00:09:46.191
but they don't don't destroy them all.
00:09:46.270 --> 00:09:47.652
So there are transcriptions
00:09:47.711 --> 00:09:48.211
of some of them,
00:09:48.251 --> 00:09:48.932
some of the originals
00:09:48.991 --> 00:09:51.553
before they're coded that survive.
00:09:51.594 --> 00:09:51.833
In fact,
00:09:51.854 --> 00:09:54.034
there's 194 known surviving
00:09:54.095 --> 00:09:56.836
letters totaling 305 pages.
00:09:57.576 --> 00:09:59.378
So that's all we know for a fact.
00:10:00.879 --> 00:10:01.700
Morton Pennypacker,
00:10:01.740 --> 00:10:02.620
who was a Suffolk County
00:10:02.660 --> 00:10:05.023
historian and become the
00:10:05.062 --> 00:10:07.465
official county historian at some point,
00:10:08.085 --> 00:10:08.985
writes two books in the
00:10:09.186 --> 00:10:11.729
19th and one in 1931 and 1939.
00:10:11.729 --> 00:10:15.152
And just going through the letters,
00:10:15.711 --> 00:10:17.614
somehow he figures out all the players.
00:10:17.653 --> 00:10:19.335
And I'm not even sure because
00:10:20.543 --> 00:10:22.446
they're using code names early on.
00:10:22.466 --> 00:10:23.407
Uh, it,
00:10:23.547 --> 00:10:24.889
it's brilliant piece of detective work,
00:10:24.928 --> 00:10:26.211
how he identifies all the
00:10:26.230 --> 00:10:28.594
key players in the first book.
00:10:28.634 --> 00:10:29.634
And then in the second book,
00:10:29.715 --> 00:10:30.856
he proves that Robert
00:10:30.876 --> 00:10:33.461
Townsend was Cooper jr.
00:10:34.201 --> 00:10:37.385
By comparing, uh, uh, the, uh,
00:10:38.350 --> 00:10:39.431
account books that Townsend
00:10:39.471 --> 00:10:41.471
kept as the agent for his
00:10:41.511 --> 00:10:42.493
merchant father out in
00:10:42.592 --> 00:10:44.712
Oyster Bay has a
00:10:44.753 --> 00:10:45.953
handwriting expert compare
00:10:45.974 --> 00:10:47.193
the analysis and said, OK,
00:10:47.214 --> 00:10:49.195
the corporate junior letter
00:10:49.215 --> 00:10:50.154
is coming out from the city
00:10:50.195 --> 00:10:51.275
or the same handwriting as
00:10:51.336 --> 00:10:51.956
in the account books.
00:10:52.535 --> 00:10:54.756
So he proves that Townsend is a member.
00:10:55.496 --> 00:10:56.258
But that's all we know.
00:10:56.418 --> 00:10:57.258
And then from that,
00:10:57.337 --> 00:10:58.158
people just take these
00:10:58.197 --> 00:10:59.239
giant leaps of faith with
00:10:59.339 --> 00:11:02.399
absolutely no valid information.
00:11:02.580 --> 00:11:05.260
And some of them are easily debunked,
00:11:05.760 --> 00:11:06.642
like the fact that
00:11:08.684 --> 00:11:11.846
Robert Townsend's younger sister, Sally,
00:11:11.907 --> 00:11:13.248
out in Oyster Bay overhears
00:11:13.807 --> 00:11:16.070
Colonel Simcoe talking to John Andre,
00:11:16.549 --> 00:11:18.510
the British aide-de-camp and spymaster,
00:11:19.091 --> 00:11:20.231
about Benedict Arnold's
00:11:20.292 --> 00:11:21.952
plan to flip sides.
00:11:22.052 --> 00:11:23.033
And then she alerts Robert,
00:11:23.053 --> 00:11:23.953
who learns Talmadge,
00:11:24.414 --> 00:11:25.615
and that's how he's captured.
00:11:26.515 --> 00:11:27.216
It's nonsense.
00:11:27.636 --> 00:11:30.798
We know that Andre stayed with that...
00:11:33.682 --> 00:11:35.124
Andre stayed at Raynham Hall
00:11:35.163 --> 00:11:36.183
for a week because he was
00:11:36.224 --> 00:11:37.344
recuperating from an illness.
00:11:37.964 --> 00:11:39.745
He wrote several letters from Raynham Hall,
00:11:39.845 --> 00:11:40.644
and they were a full year
00:11:40.705 --> 00:11:43.985
before Arnold makes his
00:11:44.005 --> 00:11:45.566
first overtures to flip sides.
00:11:46.025 --> 00:11:46.605
So a lot of them,
00:11:46.666 --> 00:11:48.486
even basic research would debunk,
00:11:49.126 --> 00:11:51.347
but some of the stuff is just crazy.
00:11:53.408 --> 00:11:55.068
Brian Kilmeade, who I like to pick on,
00:11:55.129 --> 00:11:57.311
invents a Agent 355 with
00:11:57.990 --> 00:12:00.211
absolutely no proof that
00:12:00.272 --> 00:12:01.373
such a woman existed,
00:12:01.533 --> 00:12:02.634
and then has her become the
00:12:02.833 --> 00:12:04.835
illegitimate mistress of
00:12:05.635 --> 00:12:06.716
Robert Townsend in the city,
00:12:06.836 --> 00:12:07.736
although there's only one
00:12:07.797 --> 00:12:09.018
woman mentioned in any letter,
00:12:09.038 --> 00:12:09.557
a generic 355,
00:12:09.557 --> 00:12:12.559
which is the code for any woman.
00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:14.159
and it's a letter from
00:12:14.220 --> 00:12:15.260
woodhull to washington
00:12:15.301 --> 00:12:16.100
saying that with the help
00:12:16.140 --> 00:12:18.761
of a 355 he will be able to
00:12:18.841 --> 00:12:20.442
outwit the british so brian
00:12:20.482 --> 00:12:21.903
kill me takes that one fact
00:12:22.462 --> 00:12:23.604
turns this woman into a
00:12:23.663 --> 00:12:26.585
tory uh family member who
00:12:26.664 --> 00:12:27.504
sympathizes with the
00:12:27.544 --> 00:12:29.005
revolution goes to andre's
00:12:29.125 --> 00:12:30.886
soirees in the city and
00:12:30.927 --> 00:12:32.447
then tips off washington no
00:12:32.486 --> 00:12:33.788
proof says they have
00:12:33.868 --> 00:12:34.827
illegitimate child though
00:12:34.847 --> 00:12:36.629
there's no connection proven at all to
00:12:37.729 --> 00:12:38.870
towns in the city and then
00:12:39.070 --> 00:12:40.211
says she ends up dying on a
00:12:40.250 --> 00:12:42.011
prison hulk in New York Bay.
00:12:42.532 --> 00:12:43.873
And it's all totally made up.
00:12:44.533 --> 00:12:46.335
He actually convened a group
00:12:46.355 --> 00:12:47.936
of all the historians I relied on.
00:12:47.956 --> 00:12:49.356
They all told him the true
00:12:49.376 --> 00:12:50.336
story and then he went off
00:12:50.376 --> 00:12:51.097
and just made it up,
00:12:51.177 --> 00:12:52.318
even made up dialogue for
00:12:52.359 --> 00:12:54.159
them without explaining how
00:12:54.200 --> 00:12:55.259
he would know what they
00:12:55.299 --> 00:12:56.681
said to each other in their meetings.
00:12:57.381 --> 00:12:58.542
So it's really,
00:13:00.568 --> 00:13:03.051
just a lot of speculation of fact.
00:13:03.110 --> 00:13:06.212
And one CIA analyst wrote
00:13:06.253 --> 00:13:07.874
about there's a famous myth
00:13:08.114 --> 00:13:09.955
that Anna Strong
00:13:09.995 --> 00:13:12.177
communicated with Woodhull
00:13:12.197 --> 00:13:13.258
across the harbor by using
00:13:13.298 --> 00:13:15.379
her clothesline to say when
00:13:15.839 --> 00:13:16.740
Talmadge is going to show
00:13:16.799 --> 00:13:18.380
up to pick up or drop off letters.
00:13:21.028 --> 00:13:21.749
It's a great story.
00:13:21.769 --> 00:13:22.330
It could have worked,
00:13:22.389 --> 00:13:23.789
but it's no proof it ever happened.
00:13:24.490 --> 00:13:25.931
And then a historian out in
00:13:25.990 --> 00:13:28.971
the Phillips Row House in Port Jefferson,
00:13:29.011 --> 00:13:30.231
which is known to be the
00:13:30.532 --> 00:13:32.732
home of two members of the spy ring,
00:13:32.773 --> 00:13:33.793
did some research and found
00:13:33.812 --> 00:13:35.533
out Anna Strong wasn't
00:13:35.573 --> 00:13:36.614
staying at her Setauket
00:13:36.634 --> 00:13:38.073
property during the revolution.
00:13:38.134 --> 00:13:39.355
She stayed at another home
00:13:39.875 --> 00:13:40.995
further east of Mount Sinai,
00:13:41.014 --> 00:13:42.816
where you couldn't even see it.
00:13:43.515 --> 00:13:45.716
So one person even had one
00:13:45.976 --> 00:13:48.437
CIA analyst wrote that it was
00:13:49.857 --> 00:13:50.498
Caleb,
00:13:50.518 --> 00:13:52.279
it was Talmadge in Connecticut was
00:13:52.340 --> 00:13:54.981
watching the handkerchiefs
00:13:55.081 --> 00:13:56.602
and the petticoats from Connecticut,
00:13:57.283 --> 00:13:58.844
which is impossible because
00:13:58.884 --> 00:13:59.884
of the curvature of the earth.
00:14:01.466 --> 00:14:02.767
People just haven't done their homework.
00:14:02.787 --> 00:14:03.707
It's amazing.
00:14:03.988 --> 00:14:06.230
But they're telling good stories,
00:14:07.070 --> 00:14:08.211
but not plausible stories
00:14:08.250 --> 00:14:09.091
if you look into them.
00:14:09.474 --> 00:14:09.653
Yeah,
00:14:09.693 --> 00:14:11.235
but this is all portrayed as history.
00:14:11.335 --> 00:14:11.514
I mean,
00:14:13.235 --> 00:14:16.636
Tern says it's a drama series and
00:14:18.177 --> 00:14:20.859
people should expect them to dramatize it,
00:14:20.879 --> 00:14:22.399
which they did and change the facts.
00:14:23.100 --> 00:14:24.260
But Kilmeade's book is
00:14:24.321 --> 00:14:27.001
billed as straight history.
00:14:27.022 --> 00:14:28.101
A lot of these other things
00:14:28.142 --> 00:14:28.702
that have been written
00:14:29.903 --> 00:14:30.984
going back to Pennypacker,
00:14:31.083 --> 00:14:33.225
were described as straight history.
00:14:33.645 --> 00:14:35.366
Pennypacker is the first one
00:14:35.748 --> 00:14:37.188
to share this Anna Strong legend,
00:14:37.229 --> 00:14:38.750
which was handed down through her family.
00:14:39.630 --> 00:14:42.533
And a descendant of Anna
00:14:43.413 --> 00:14:44.594
writes a family history and says,
00:14:44.614 --> 00:14:45.315
we know this is true
00:14:45.355 --> 00:14:46.596
because of family documents
00:14:47.255 --> 00:14:49.077
and some of the paperwork
00:14:49.118 --> 00:14:50.759
that Pennypacker uncovered
00:14:50.798 --> 00:14:52.139
that's in the East Hampton Library,
00:14:52.559 --> 00:14:54.000
except nobody's ever seen any of this.
00:14:55.142 --> 00:14:55.322
I mean,
00:14:55.341 --> 00:14:56.682
the basic historical research
00:14:56.743 --> 00:14:58.124
debunks almost all of this stuff.
00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:00.981
Well, we're talking with Bill Blyer,
00:15:01.082 --> 00:15:01.842
author of George
00:15:01.883 --> 00:15:03.764
Washington's Long Island Spy Ring,
00:15:04.125 --> 00:15:05.745
a history and tour guide.
00:15:07.126 --> 00:15:08.808
Now, as you said,
00:15:09.188 --> 00:15:10.490
you also wanted to show the
00:15:10.549 --> 00:15:12.932
places that are still there.
00:15:13.011 --> 00:15:13.773
So what are some of the
00:15:14.352 --> 00:15:15.714
sites on Long Island that
00:15:15.754 --> 00:15:17.615
are tied to the Culper Spy
00:15:17.655 --> 00:15:19.336
Ring that are still around?
00:15:19.897 --> 00:15:21.639
Woodhull's Farmhouse was on
00:15:21.658 --> 00:15:22.639
the shore of Setauket Hub
00:15:22.658 --> 00:15:24.240
and burned down in the 1950s.
00:15:25.721 --> 00:15:27.322
Benjamin Talmadge's family home,
00:15:27.363 --> 00:15:27.923
which was the
00:15:30.705 --> 00:15:32.267
adjacent to, I think,
00:15:32.287 --> 00:15:33.970
the Presbyterian Church is still there.
00:15:33.990 --> 00:15:35.010
You can see it from the water,
00:15:35.051 --> 00:15:36.072
but not from the land.
00:15:41.038 --> 00:15:42.460
You can see where Woodhull's
00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:45.443
grave is in the graveyard in Setauket.
00:15:45.524 --> 00:15:47.285
There's a lot of sites associated with
00:15:48.216 --> 00:15:50.379
the Patriot story in the Revolution.
00:15:51.700 --> 00:15:52.379
Raynham Hall,
00:15:52.460 --> 00:15:53.701
which was the family home of
00:15:53.760 --> 00:15:55.162
Robert Townsend in Oyster Bay,
00:15:55.581 --> 00:15:57.583
is a house museum,
00:15:57.604 --> 00:15:58.844
so people can visit that
00:15:59.465 --> 00:16:00.365
and learn more about
00:16:00.426 --> 00:16:01.907
Townsend and the spy ring there.
00:16:03.027 --> 00:16:04.467
But there's a whole core of
00:16:05.068 --> 00:16:06.309
Revolutionary era buildings
00:16:06.370 --> 00:16:07.890
all along the North Shore of Long Island.
00:16:08.870 --> 00:16:10.633
The state actually in 2017,
00:16:10.633 --> 00:16:12.293
corresponding with the end of turn,
00:16:13.014 --> 00:16:15.035
created a George Washington spy trail,
00:16:15.056 --> 00:16:16.236
a heritage corridor,
00:16:16.876 --> 00:16:17.876
And they put up signs with
00:16:17.876 --> 00:16:21.738
55 miles as a website where
00:16:21.758 --> 00:16:23.217
you can learn about all the
00:16:23.258 --> 00:16:26.458
different sites and get an
00:16:26.739 --> 00:16:27.759
audio tour as you go.
00:16:27.778 --> 00:16:28.698
Oh, great.
00:16:29.440 --> 00:16:29.879
Great.
00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:31.659
So there's a lot of stuff you can do.
00:16:31.700 --> 00:16:31.899
I mean,
00:16:31.919 --> 00:16:34.260
people can spend a day or more just
00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:36.061
tracking down connections
00:16:36.100 --> 00:16:36.660
to the spy ring.
00:16:36.961 --> 00:16:37.780
There's also the Three
00:16:37.801 --> 00:16:39.121
Village Historical Society
00:16:39.142 --> 00:16:40.961
and a couple of commercial
00:16:41.162 --> 00:16:43.402
operations give Culper spy
00:16:43.442 --> 00:16:44.523
tours where they drive you
00:16:44.562 --> 00:16:46.102
around and show you the different sites.
00:16:47.461 --> 00:16:48.841
There's a great deal of interest in this,
00:16:48.902 --> 00:16:49.261
as you said,
00:16:49.302 --> 00:16:50.923
really because of the series turn.
00:16:51.624 --> 00:16:53.586
And it's good then that
00:16:53.625 --> 00:16:56.128
you're able to take these
00:16:56.268 --> 00:16:57.307
interests people have and
00:16:57.349 --> 00:16:58.789
turn it into what the
00:16:58.950 --> 00:17:00.870
actual story was or what we
00:17:00.910 --> 00:17:03.312
can know about the actual story.
00:17:04.445 --> 00:17:06.346
So what happened to Townsend
00:17:06.426 --> 00:17:08.288
and Woodhull after the revolution?
00:17:08.989 --> 00:17:10.829
Woodhull gets married,
00:17:10.869 --> 00:17:12.851
lives sort of happily ever after as a,
00:17:12.871 --> 00:17:14.571
you know, semi-prosperous farmer.
00:17:15.732 --> 00:17:16.393
Townsend,
00:17:16.413 --> 00:17:19.154
I should show you these pictures
00:17:19.234 --> 00:17:19.654
of Townsend.
00:17:20.096 --> 00:17:22.936
This is the only known image of him,
00:17:23.017 --> 00:17:25.459
but it's done in 1813 by his nephew.
00:17:26.638 --> 00:17:27.640
What we think he looked like
00:17:27.700 --> 00:17:30.061
based on that picture and, um,
00:17:32.816 --> 00:17:33.376
Claire Belgeau,
00:17:33.396 --> 00:17:34.557
one of the local historians,
00:17:36.058 --> 00:17:37.480
was the historian at Greenham Hall,
00:17:37.941 --> 00:17:39.020
had this portrait
00:17:39.061 --> 00:17:39.942
commissioned from that
00:17:40.021 --> 00:17:45.007
other drawing and family
00:17:45.626 --> 00:17:46.528
descriptions of him.
00:17:47.628 --> 00:17:49.570
He continued to run his
00:17:49.671 --> 00:17:50.632
father's collection
00:17:52.507 --> 00:17:55.308
mercantile business from Oyster Bay.
00:17:55.568 --> 00:17:56.269
When his father died,
00:17:56.289 --> 00:17:58.691
he took over the business, never married.
00:17:59.050 --> 00:17:59.652
He was a quiet,
00:17:59.692 --> 00:18:00.612
very kind of depressive
00:18:00.672 --> 00:18:06.016
personality described by family members.
00:18:06.115 --> 00:18:08.917
So he basically became the
00:18:08.958 --> 00:18:10.439
head of the family and ran
00:18:10.459 --> 00:18:12.380
the business until he died in the 1800s.
00:18:12.420 --> 00:18:12.599
Okay, good.
00:18:17.170 --> 00:18:17.349
Now,
00:18:17.609 --> 00:18:20.352
the first real fictional account of this,
00:18:20.451 --> 00:18:20.711
I think,
00:18:20.731 --> 00:18:21.971
that I know of is James Fenimore
00:18:21.991 --> 00:18:23.472
Cooper's novel, The Spy.
00:18:24.554 --> 00:18:26.334
And he has this character
00:18:26.413 --> 00:18:27.795
much later in life who's
00:18:27.835 --> 00:18:29.655
despised by because no one
00:18:29.695 --> 00:18:30.957
knew he had been doing this.
00:18:31.017 --> 00:18:32.978
They thought he was a Tory,
00:18:33.657 --> 00:18:34.458
but actually he had been
00:18:34.498 --> 00:18:35.519
conveying information.
00:18:36.739 --> 00:18:36.880
Now,
00:18:36.900 --> 00:18:38.799
you mentioned that Long Island really
00:18:38.859 --> 00:18:40.441
had a lot of Tories in
00:18:40.461 --> 00:18:41.961
Setauket and these other towns.
00:18:42.375 --> 00:18:43.337
What happens to these
00:18:43.397 --> 00:18:44.359
communities after the
00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:45.221
revolution that have been
00:18:45.241 --> 00:18:47.126
torn apart by this division?
00:18:47.980 --> 00:18:49.241
Yeah.
00:18:49.362 --> 00:18:50.682
The New York legislature,
00:18:51.123 --> 00:18:52.042
even before the war ends,
00:18:52.063 --> 00:18:52.963
starts passing all these
00:18:53.023 --> 00:18:55.305
laws to tax or confiscate
00:18:55.345 --> 00:18:56.625
property of the loyalists.
00:18:57.685 --> 00:18:59.106
It did happen a bit in Suffolk,
00:18:59.146 --> 00:19:01.407
which was more patriotic than Queens,
00:19:02.448 --> 00:19:04.088
where it was Queens was
00:19:04.128 --> 00:19:05.990
more loyalist than patriots.
00:19:06.630 --> 00:19:07.790
So there really didn't there
00:19:07.810 --> 00:19:08.791
really wasn't a lot of
00:19:09.372 --> 00:19:11.732
retribution by the state or
00:19:11.813 --> 00:19:13.374
even neighbor against neighbor.
00:19:13.493 --> 00:19:14.815
Suffolk County got a little more.
00:19:17.234 --> 00:19:19.096
But I mean, basically people,
00:19:19.175 --> 00:19:20.736
I think after seven years of war,
00:19:21.615 --> 00:19:22.476
wanted to get back to
00:19:23.316 --> 00:19:24.997
normal as best as they could.
00:19:26.217 --> 00:19:27.136
Interesting is Long Island
00:19:27.176 --> 00:19:28.257
was occupied by the British
00:19:28.317 --> 00:19:29.297
longer than any other place
00:19:29.317 --> 00:19:30.077
in the country.
00:19:31.897 --> 00:19:32.877
Even after they abandoned
00:19:32.897 --> 00:19:34.718
the South and then they
00:19:34.738 --> 00:19:35.898
were leaving New York City,
00:19:35.959 --> 00:19:37.919
they had troops on Long
00:19:37.999 --> 00:19:39.598
Island for several weeks
00:19:39.679 --> 00:19:41.460
after the evacuation day in
00:19:41.480 --> 00:19:42.980
the city because they wanted to make sure
00:19:43.720 --> 00:19:44.582
the loyalists would be
00:19:44.662 --> 00:19:46.163
safely evacuated to Canada
00:19:46.183 --> 00:19:47.326
or wherever they were going to go.
00:19:47.346 --> 00:19:50.652
So it was interesting.
00:19:50.873 --> 00:19:51.994
It was more than seven years
00:19:52.115 --> 00:19:52.976
under the British rule.
00:19:52.996 --> 00:19:53.056
Wow.
00:19:53.616 --> 00:19:53.917
Wow.
00:19:54.839 --> 00:19:56.061
And were a lot evacuated at
00:19:56.102 --> 00:19:56.603
the end of the war?
00:19:57.512 --> 00:20:00.134
thousands, there was fleets of ships.
00:20:01.115 --> 00:20:03.037
One of them was actually
00:20:03.636 --> 00:20:04.317
under the command of
00:20:04.357 --> 00:20:05.218
Colonel Simcoe from the
00:20:05.238 --> 00:20:06.318
Queen's Rangers who spent
00:20:06.338 --> 00:20:07.900
much of the war several
00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:09.361
times headquartered in Oyster Bay.
00:20:10.500 --> 00:20:12.182
He brought a fleet of ships
00:20:12.281 --> 00:20:14.223
to found what is now Toronto.
00:20:15.684 --> 00:20:17.865
Because he was an abolitionist in founding,
00:20:17.925 --> 00:20:18.686
he made sure that there
00:20:18.707 --> 00:20:20.428
would never be slaves in Toronto.
00:20:21.028 --> 00:20:22.028
So every year they have a
00:20:22.068 --> 00:20:23.308
Simcoe Day to honor him for
00:20:23.348 --> 00:20:24.569
founding the city and also
00:20:24.589 --> 00:20:25.351
for making sure that
00:20:26.474 --> 00:20:28.017
There would never be slaves in that city.
00:20:28.718 --> 00:20:29.077
Amazing.
00:20:29.417 --> 00:20:30.819
We're talking with Bill Blyer,
00:20:30.900 --> 00:20:31.539
author of George
00:20:31.580 --> 00:20:33.623
Washington's Long Island Spy Ring,
00:20:33.702 --> 00:20:35.664
a history and tour guide,
00:20:36.665 --> 00:20:37.747
which not only shows us
00:20:37.807 --> 00:20:39.067
where things happened,
00:20:39.488 --> 00:20:41.049
but it does tell the real
00:20:41.089 --> 00:20:42.391
story of what was going on
00:20:42.471 --> 00:20:44.292
with the Culper Spy Ring.
00:20:44.353 --> 00:20:45.894
Why were they called the Culper Spy Ring?
00:20:47.189 --> 00:20:48.290
We don't know for sure.
00:20:48.590 --> 00:20:50.432
The best guess is that
00:20:50.972 --> 00:20:52.174
because George Washington
00:20:52.815 --> 00:20:53.955
was a surveyor when he was
00:20:54.037 --> 00:20:56.898
a teenager in Culpeper County, Virginia,
00:20:57.539 --> 00:20:59.843
that when they decided to use spy names,
00:21:00.242 --> 00:21:01.344
initially the three main
00:21:01.384 --> 00:21:04.728
players took code names.
00:21:07.897 --> 00:21:10.377
Woodhull became Samuel Culper Sr.
00:21:11.278 --> 00:21:16.118
and Talmadge became John Bolton.
00:21:16.138 --> 00:21:19.019
And then eventually when
00:21:19.980 --> 00:21:21.961
Woodhull recruits Townsend in the city,
00:21:21.980 --> 00:21:23.240
he becomes Culper Jr.
00:21:24.060 --> 00:21:25.300
We figured that either
00:21:25.540 --> 00:21:26.580
Washington suggested
00:21:26.641 --> 00:21:27.862
because of his memories of
00:21:28.061 --> 00:21:30.261
being in Culper County or
00:21:30.582 --> 00:21:31.801
Talmadge who knew about
00:21:31.862 --> 00:21:33.163
that suggested the name.
00:21:33.482 --> 00:21:34.242
So it might've been...
00:21:36.644 --> 00:21:38.006
That made it probably the best guess.
00:21:38.066 --> 00:21:38.705
And then they just sort of
00:21:38.746 --> 00:21:40.406
shortened it from Culpeper to Culper.
00:21:41.468 --> 00:21:42.807
But none of the surviving
00:21:42.847 --> 00:21:44.388
letters explain where the name came from.
00:21:44.409 --> 00:21:46.710
And there's almost nothing
00:21:46.750 --> 00:21:48.030
written by the participants
00:21:48.211 --> 00:21:48.931
after the war.
00:21:50.172 --> 00:21:51.271
Woodhull never wrote a word.
00:21:51.692 --> 00:21:53.334
Talmadge wrote a memoir just
00:21:53.354 --> 00:21:54.134
for his children.
00:21:54.554 --> 00:21:56.275
That was not meant to be
00:21:56.335 --> 00:21:57.796
published and only wrote
00:21:58.056 --> 00:21:59.436
two sentences about the spy
00:21:59.457 --> 00:22:00.957
ring and didn't explain the name.
00:22:01.637 --> 00:22:02.178
Wow, wow.
00:22:03.224 --> 00:22:04.932
So Townsend is in New York.
00:22:04.991 --> 00:22:06.237
He's a merchant in New York
00:22:06.457 --> 00:22:07.602
during this whole entire time.
00:22:08.336 --> 00:22:08.955
Pretty much, yeah,
00:22:09.076 --> 00:22:10.957
except the one exception
00:22:11.057 --> 00:22:14.698
was when Benedict Arnold switches sides,
00:22:14.778 --> 00:22:15.518
one of the first things he
00:22:15.557 --> 00:22:17.519
does is organize an effort
00:22:17.558 --> 00:22:19.199
to capture and uncover the
00:22:19.239 --> 00:22:20.400
spies operating in New York,
00:22:20.420 --> 00:22:21.180
because it's pretty well
00:22:21.220 --> 00:22:22.079
known it's happening.
00:22:23.020 --> 00:22:24.201
They arrest 30 people,
00:22:24.320 --> 00:22:25.441
including a tailor named
00:22:25.480 --> 00:22:26.561
Hercules Mulligan,
00:22:27.961 --> 00:22:29.803
who saved George Washington
00:22:29.843 --> 00:22:30.522
from capture and
00:22:30.563 --> 00:22:32.023
assassination at least twice.
00:22:33.523 --> 00:22:34.663
But he was working.
00:22:34.804 --> 00:22:36.265
He he knew Townsend.
00:22:36.285 --> 00:22:38.365
He knew the spy ring operation,
00:22:38.845 --> 00:22:40.085
but was working independently,
00:22:40.546 --> 00:22:41.645
sending information north
00:22:42.306 --> 00:22:44.165
through the Bronx with his spy.
00:22:44.185 --> 00:22:45.747
I'm sorry, with his slave.
00:22:47.166 --> 00:22:48.326
He was captured and somehow
00:22:48.846 --> 00:22:49.988
talked his way out of being
00:22:50.048 --> 00:22:51.788
hanged or had enough people
00:22:51.867 --> 00:22:53.567
vouch for him because he
00:22:53.587 --> 00:22:56.108
was making uniforms for British soldiers.
00:22:56.949 --> 00:22:57.990
He befriended a lot of them.
00:22:58.029 --> 00:22:59.289
That's how we got his information.
00:23:00.310 --> 00:23:01.192
So I think a lot of them
00:23:01.251 --> 00:23:03.292
spoke up for him and got
00:23:03.393 --> 00:23:04.292
Arnold to release him.
00:23:05.594 --> 00:23:07.194
But Townsend was so unnerved
00:23:07.255 --> 00:23:09.135
by this effort to uncover
00:23:09.155 --> 00:23:10.176
the spies that he goes back
00:23:10.217 --> 00:23:11.096
to Oyster Bay and stops
00:23:11.136 --> 00:23:12.117
spying for nine months,
00:23:12.597 --> 00:23:14.358
which angered Washington to
00:23:14.378 --> 00:23:14.939
the point where he
00:23:14.979 --> 00:23:16.880
basically sort of declared
00:23:16.920 --> 00:23:18.922
the spy ring dead for the duration.
00:23:20.001 --> 00:23:21.083
And when they came back into
00:23:21.123 --> 00:23:22.023
operation later,
00:23:22.765 --> 00:23:24.326
he was pretty sour on them
00:23:24.366 --> 00:23:25.288
for the rest of the war,
00:23:25.928 --> 00:23:26.888
even though Townsend was
00:23:26.929 --> 00:23:27.869
the one who told them the
00:23:27.930 --> 00:23:28.530
British were going to
00:23:28.550 --> 00:23:30.211
accept a peace treaty after
00:23:30.251 --> 00:23:30.952
a year and a half of
00:23:31.353 --> 00:23:32.654
inaction and no battles.
00:23:34.056 --> 00:23:36.557
Well, and are these guys, by the way,
00:23:36.617 --> 00:23:37.960
compensated by Washington
00:23:37.980 --> 00:23:39.161
for their intelligences?
00:23:40.035 --> 00:23:40.935
uh none of them were ever
00:23:40.976 --> 00:23:42.276
paid uh because that they
00:23:42.296 --> 00:23:43.016
didn't want to be paid
00:23:43.056 --> 00:23:44.376
because becoming paid made
00:23:44.396 --> 00:23:46.157
them like a judas right at
00:23:46.178 --> 00:23:47.959
the time even spying for
00:23:48.019 --> 00:23:49.880
free uh was considered you
00:23:50.039 --> 00:23:50.700
know one of the lowest
00:23:50.740 --> 00:23:52.260
forms of humanity so uh
00:23:53.240 --> 00:23:54.060
part of the trouble they
00:23:54.101 --> 00:23:55.781
had getting spies was you
00:23:55.801 --> 00:23:56.663
know the young gentlemen
00:23:56.722 --> 00:23:57.962
intelligent young officers
00:23:58.002 --> 00:23:59.463
they would want like a
00:23:59.483 --> 00:24:01.224
nathan hale didn't want to
00:24:01.244 --> 00:24:02.144
do it because it would ruin
00:24:02.164 --> 00:24:03.326
their reputation for life
00:24:03.346 --> 00:24:05.185
uh hale overlooked that and
00:24:05.567 --> 00:24:07.247
turned out to be a pretty bad spy but
00:24:09.768 --> 00:24:11.648
They were never paid on purpose,
00:24:12.048 --> 00:24:13.528
but they did get paid for their expenses.
00:24:13.608 --> 00:24:15.109
So they were renting horses.
00:24:15.170 --> 00:24:17.210
They were paying for lodging in the city.
00:24:17.250 --> 00:24:20.750
They were buying paper, ink, other things.
00:24:20.951 --> 00:24:22.730
And periodically Talmadge
00:24:22.770 --> 00:24:25.251
would collect accounts from the players,
00:24:25.291 --> 00:24:26.231
send it off to Washington,
00:24:26.251 --> 00:24:27.192
who would get them repaid
00:24:27.232 --> 00:24:28.032
for their outlays.
00:24:29.292 --> 00:24:31.433
Now, aside from Hercules Mulligan,
00:24:31.473 --> 00:24:33.233
these 30 people arrested
00:24:33.314 --> 00:24:34.834
for espionage when Arnold
00:24:34.913 --> 00:24:37.154
comes to New York, what happens to them?
00:24:38.816 --> 00:24:39.277
I don't know.
00:24:39.297 --> 00:24:40.458
I've never seen an account.
00:24:40.518 --> 00:24:42.400
We know Mulligan was
00:24:42.420 --> 00:24:44.162
released and went right back to spying.
00:24:44.182 --> 00:24:47.224
I imagine if they had a good case,
00:24:47.244 --> 00:24:48.506
they'd probably hang some of them.
00:24:48.645 --> 00:24:49.906
And if they couldn't, they released them.
00:24:49.926 --> 00:24:52.390
But I've never seen any kind of follow up,
00:24:52.450 --> 00:24:53.570
you know, from the British records.
00:24:54.211 --> 00:24:54.391
Yeah.
00:24:55.071 --> 00:24:57.013
Of course, the mysterious agent 355.
00:24:57.634 --> 00:24:59.296
And according to that one
00:24:59.336 --> 00:25:00.376
account you mentioned is on
00:25:00.416 --> 00:25:01.679
a prison hulk in New York.
00:25:01.778 --> 00:25:02.138
I mean, there.
00:25:02.846 --> 00:25:04.811
these great stories about
00:25:04.873 --> 00:25:07.300
these individuals that
00:25:07.320 --> 00:25:08.324
you're trying to piece together.
00:25:10.645 --> 00:25:11.586
uh nathaniel philbrook's
00:25:11.626 --> 00:25:12.688
book about washington he
00:25:12.728 --> 00:25:14.009
does have him making a trip
00:25:14.068 --> 00:25:15.390
to long island as part of
00:25:15.450 --> 00:25:17.132
his national tour to see
00:25:17.211 --> 00:25:18.772
some of these individuals
00:25:19.213 --> 00:25:21.195
um is that true or did you
00:25:21.236 --> 00:25:23.938
find it no no uh and and
00:25:23.958 --> 00:25:25.599
phil philbrook who I admire
00:25:25.660 --> 00:25:26.539
read all of his books when
00:25:26.559 --> 00:25:28.682
I read his accounting of
00:25:28.923 --> 00:25:30.203
george washington's 790
00:25:30.203 --> 00:25:31.704
trip I groaned and so did
00:25:31.724 --> 00:25:32.526
the other historians in
00:25:32.546 --> 00:25:34.528
long island because this is
00:25:34.567 --> 00:25:35.488
another one of these myths
00:25:36.489 --> 00:25:38.069
that's got wide circulation,
00:25:39.369 --> 00:25:40.509
Philbrook didn't do his homework.
00:25:40.589 --> 00:25:41.210
I mean, my book,
00:25:41.289 --> 00:25:45.111
I tackle that trip and explain it.
00:25:45.612 --> 00:25:47.991
For your listeners briefly, 1789, 1799, no,
00:25:47.991 --> 00:25:54.713
1790. 1790.
00:25:54.713 --> 00:25:58.415
I've got to get the year before 1790,
00:25:58.415 --> 00:25:58.997
whatever that is.
00:26:00.278 --> 00:26:00.577
Thank you, 89.
00:26:01.878 --> 00:26:04.059
He takes a long trip to New
00:26:04.119 --> 00:26:05.540
England at the suggestion
00:26:05.560 --> 00:26:06.622
of Alexander Hamilton,
00:26:06.662 --> 00:26:08.083
who's the Secretary of the Treasury.
00:26:08.843 --> 00:26:10.784
Hamilton says, Congress is in session.
00:26:10.824 --> 00:26:12.726
You should go out and unify the colonies,
00:26:13.145 --> 00:26:15.207
show the flag, let people see you,
00:26:15.267 --> 00:26:16.248
get the public mood.
00:26:17.167 --> 00:26:18.509
Washington says it's a great idea.
00:26:18.548 --> 00:26:19.549
So he goes for several weeks,
00:26:19.609 --> 00:26:20.590
travels around New England,
00:26:21.351 --> 00:26:22.991
keeps a personal diary of
00:26:23.172 --> 00:26:24.794
who he sees what who fits
00:26:24.834 --> 00:26:26.515
him what he has for dinner
00:26:26.555 --> 00:26:27.855
where he stays you know and
00:26:27.895 --> 00:26:28.957
also because he's a farmer
00:26:29.597 --> 00:26:31.219
what the farm uh farmers
00:26:31.278 --> 00:26:32.259
are growing what the soil
00:26:32.279 --> 00:26:34.141
conditions are so the next
00:26:34.181 --> 00:26:37.083
year uh in the uh spring of
00:26:37.083 --> 00:26:38.644
1790 decides to do the same
00:26:38.664 --> 00:26:40.566
thing on long island he's
00:26:40.605 --> 00:26:41.926
only been on long island uh
00:26:42.086 --> 00:26:43.909
once in his life in august of
00:26:43.909 --> 00:26:46.618
1776 for the Battle of Long
00:26:46.699 --> 00:26:48.059
Island and has never been back since.
00:26:48.660 --> 00:26:49.480
You can understand why he
00:26:49.520 --> 00:26:50.260
wouldn't want to come back.
00:26:50.280 --> 00:26:50.661
Yeah.
00:26:51.162 --> 00:26:52.602
But either it was either his
00:26:52.663 --> 00:26:53.343
idea or Hamilton's.
00:26:53.383 --> 00:26:54.282
He decides to go to Long
00:26:54.323 --> 00:26:55.304
Island for five days,
00:26:56.144 --> 00:26:57.424
travels out the South Shore
00:26:57.484 --> 00:27:00.507
halfway down the island, crosses north,
00:27:00.527 --> 00:27:01.928
stays in Setauket at the
00:27:01.968 --> 00:27:03.548
tavern owned by Austin Rowe,
00:27:04.088 --> 00:27:05.109
who was the chief courier
00:27:05.190 --> 00:27:06.891
for the spy ring during the war,
00:27:07.891 --> 00:27:09.172
then travels west back to
00:27:09.192 --> 00:27:10.232
the city for five days.
00:27:11.032 --> 00:27:12.634
So based on the fact solely
00:27:12.674 --> 00:27:14.016
based on the fact that he
00:27:14.056 --> 00:27:15.376
stays at Western Rose Tavern,
00:27:16.018 --> 00:27:17.098
a lot of historians
00:27:17.599 --> 00:27:21.222
speculate as fact that he
00:27:21.262 --> 00:27:22.124
goes to Long Island to
00:27:22.163 --> 00:27:23.565
thank the members of the spy ring.
00:27:24.405 --> 00:27:25.386
It doesn't make sense for a
00:27:25.446 --> 00:27:26.147
lot of reasons.
00:27:28.153 --> 00:27:29.473
He stays at Austin Rowe's house.
00:27:29.554 --> 00:27:30.255
In his private diary,
00:27:30.275 --> 00:27:31.434
he says it was a nice tavern,
00:27:31.454 --> 00:27:32.596
had a good dinner.
00:27:32.996 --> 00:27:35.036
The locals he met were nice.
00:27:35.056 --> 00:27:36.116
Doesn't mention Austin Rowe
00:27:36.156 --> 00:27:38.278
by name because Austin Rowe
00:27:38.577 --> 00:27:40.097
happened to own property
00:27:40.877 --> 00:27:42.038
down in Patchogue where he
00:27:42.078 --> 00:27:43.098
stayed the night before.
00:27:44.119 --> 00:27:45.039
He's in Patchogue.
00:27:45.640 --> 00:27:46.279
when he learns that
00:27:46.339 --> 00:27:47.280
Washington had stayed in
00:27:47.300 --> 00:27:48.221
Patchogue that night and
00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:49.141
was now on his way to his
00:27:49.181 --> 00:27:51.541
tavern for the next night, Roe,
00:27:51.582 --> 00:27:53.323
who went 55 miles back and
00:27:53.363 --> 00:27:55.202
forth successfully without
00:27:55.222 --> 00:27:56.443
being captured or injured,
00:27:57.003 --> 00:27:59.005
is thrown from his horse, breaks his leg.
00:27:59.025 --> 00:27:59.984
Oh, my goodness.
00:28:00.305 --> 00:28:02.006
And we don't know exactly
00:28:02.046 --> 00:28:03.185
what happens to him after that.
00:28:03.266 --> 00:28:04.586
All the presumption is he would go
00:28:05.487 --> 00:28:06.708
back to Patchogue to see a
00:28:06.728 --> 00:28:07.969
doctor because Patchogue is
00:28:07.989 --> 00:28:08.929
a much bigger community
00:28:08.989 --> 00:28:10.269
than the little tiny Setauket.
00:28:11.750 --> 00:28:14.913
So if he had gotten to his tavern,
00:28:14.953 --> 00:28:16.654
met Washington, hosted Washington,
00:28:17.234 --> 00:28:18.536
Washington in his private diary,
00:28:18.556 --> 00:28:19.676
I'm sure would have said something.
00:28:19.717 --> 00:28:20.477
But he doesn't mention
00:28:20.517 --> 00:28:22.117
Austin Rowe other than to say,
00:28:22.198 --> 00:28:23.219
I stayed at his tavern.
00:28:24.220 --> 00:28:25.079
The other reason it doesn't
00:28:25.119 --> 00:28:26.862
make sense is he stays in
00:28:26.922 --> 00:28:28.843
Oyster Bay on the next night.
00:28:30.503 --> 00:28:31.865
Robert Townsend is living
00:28:31.905 --> 00:28:33.406
there in the family home,
00:28:33.847 --> 00:28:35.588
which is the biggest, most prosperous,
00:28:35.650 --> 00:28:37.550
most well-known home in the
00:28:37.652 --> 00:28:38.392
Oyster Bay area.
00:28:39.473 --> 00:28:40.515
Washington doesn't stay there.
00:28:40.555 --> 00:28:42.856
He stays down the road at
00:28:42.916 --> 00:28:44.338
the home of somebody who's
00:28:44.398 --> 00:28:46.181
actually a militia officer who becomes
00:28:48.461 --> 00:28:49.442
the militia sort of flips
00:28:49.461 --> 00:28:50.342
sides after the Battle of
00:28:50.362 --> 00:28:51.701
Long Island to support the British.
00:28:52.222 --> 00:28:53.103
And that's where the head of
00:28:53.143 --> 00:28:54.943
that militia is where Washington stays.
00:28:55.663 --> 00:28:57.484
So if he was going to thank
00:28:57.704 --> 00:28:59.144
the members of the spy ring,
00:28:59.184 --> 00:29:01.385
why wouldn't he stay at Townsend's house?
00:29:01.986 --> 00:29:02.987
The other thing to remember is
00:29:04.287 --> 00:29:04.967
Early on,
00:29:05.347 --> 00:29:06.768
Washington wanted to bring
00:29:06.788 --> 00:29:07.887
Woodhull to headquarters to
00:29:07.928 --> 00:29:09.628
talk to him and help set up the spy ring.
00:29:10.328 --> 00:29:12.349
Talmadge and Woodhull talk him out of it.
00:29:12.549 --> 00:29:12.869
They said,
00:29:12.930 --> 00:29:14.810
we know there are spies at your
00:29:14.830 --> 00:29:15.191
headquarters,
00:29:15.250 --> 00:29:16.590
including in your personal
00:29:16.891 --> 00:29:18.852
presidential army guard.
00:29:19.751 --> 00:29:20.731
So Washington says, yeah,
00:29:20.751 --> 00:29:21.413
that's a good idea.
00:29:21.492 --> 00:29:23.353
So he made a point never to
00:29:23.413 --> 00:29:25.054
know any players in the spy ring.
00:29:26.933 --> 00:29:28.015
So he never knew who
00:29:28.035 --> 00:29:29.454
Townsend was or anybody else.
00:29:30.115 --> 00:29:31.375
And there's no reason or no
00:29:31.455 --> 00:29:32.476
evidence to show he ever
00:29:32.615 --> 00:29:34.217
tried to find out or found
00:29:34.277 --> 00:29:35.096
out after the war.
00:29:35.116 --> 00:29:36.798
So this is another one of
00:29:36.817 --> 00:29:37.637
these things where people
00:29:37.678 --> 00:29:38.498
just take a little bit of
00:29:38.557 --> 00:29:40.838
fact and create myths from it.
00:29:41.578 --> 00:29:42.138
It's interesting.
00:29:42.398 --> 00:29:43.579
We're talking with Bill Blyer,
00:29:43.640 --> 00:29:44.240
author of George
00:29:44.279 --> 00:29:46.080
Washington's Long Island Spy Ring,
00:29:46.141 --> 00:29:47.820
a history and tour guide.
00:29:48.441 --> 00:29:48.760
And of course,
00:29:48.800 --> 00:29:50.422
Washington had other spy
00:29:50.481 --> 00:29:53.262
networks because the war moves around.
00:29:54.198 --> 00:29:57.259
he would have had a lot more agents.
00:29:57.558 --> 00:29:59.318
And knowing them, of course,
00:29:59.338 --> 00:30:01.398
would have been a problem for them.
00:30:02.480 --> 00:30:02.839
As you said,
00:30:02.859 --> 00:30:03.640
there are spies in his
00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:04.759
headquarters who then would
00:30:04.779 --> 00:30:06.340
have conveyed who they were.
00:30:06.421 --> 00:30:13.582
And when Benedict Arnold turns,
00:30:13.662 --> 00:30:16.202
then he might have known
00:30:16.222 --> 00:30:18.403
who some of these agents were.
00:30:18.502 --> 00:30:20.282
So I can see why he would
00:30:20.323 --> 00:30:21.884
have wanted to keep his distance.
00:30:21.943 --> 00:30:23.344
So this is fascinating.
00:30:25.013 --> 00:30:26.517
Now what got you into this story, Bill?
00:30:29.763 --> 00:30:30.565
This was my...
00:30:32.215 --> 00:30:32.655
fifth book,
00:30:33.336 --> 00:30:35.957
and all for the history press
00:30:36.218 --> 00:30:36.998
based in Charleston.
00:30:38.417 --> 00:30:39.959
Because of the popularity of TURN,
00:30:41.138 --> 00:30:42.420
my editor called me up and said,
00:30:42.460 --> 00:30:43.839
everybody's watching TURN on Netflix.
00:30:43.859 --> 00:30:45.461
Can you come up with a Culper spy book?
00:30:46.181 --> 00:30:47.862
My initial reaction was no,
00:30:47.961 --> 00:30:50.563
because Alexander Rose had
00:30:50.583 --> 00:30:52.022
done Washington Spies,
00:30:52.083 --> 00:30:53.324
which was really voluminous.
00:30:53.423 --> 00:30:54.503
I found a few things I
00:30:55.105 --> 00:30:56.704
disagree with him as I got
00:30:56.744 --> 00:30:57.505
into my research,
00:30:57.585 --> 00:31:00.006
but he's about 99% accurate
00:31:00.046 --> 00:31:00.807
as far as I can tell.
00:31:02.386 --> 00:31:02.567
You know,
00:31:02.586 --> 00:31:03.866
Brian Kilmeade had done a bestseller,
00:31:03.886 --> 00:31:05.468
which is historical fiction,
00:31:06.067 --> 00:31:07.347
if you're even kind to it.
00:31:08.688 --> 00:31:09.588
But there's a lot of other
00:31:09.608 --> 00:31:10.548
accounts out there going
00:31:10.568 --> 00:31:11.469
back to Pennypacker.
00:31:11.989 --> 00:31:12.989
And I basically said, well,
00:31:13.009 --> 00:31:13.888
what am I going to add?
00:31:15.049 --> 00:31:15.569
Then I came up,
00:31:16.470 --> 00:31:17.670
but this was suggested to
00:31:17.710 --> 00:31:18.390
me by my editor.
00:31:18.410 --> 00:31:18.970
I said no.
00:31:19.891 --> 00:31:21.871
Then former Congressman Steve Israel,
00:31:22.651 --> 00:31:23.351
who was the head of the
00:31:23.490 --> 00:31:24.652
Democratic Congressional
00:31:24.692 --> 00:31:25.471
Committee and then later
00:31:25.491 --> 00:31:26.092
become president,
00:31:27.172 --> 00:31:28.212
was leading a think tank at
00:31:28.333 --> 00:31:29.673
Long Island University, called me up,
00:31:29.693 --> 00:31:31.654
said, come for coffee, and said, you know,
00:31:31.674 --> 00:31:32.996
the spy trail has been
00:31:33.016 --> 00:31:33.856
created by the state,
00:31:34.076 --> 00:31:34.896
but we could really use a
00:31:34.917 --> 00:31:35.837
book to go with it to
00:31:35.917 --> 00:31:37.759
publicize all these sites and the story.
00:31:38.579 --> 00:31:39.861
So I explained to him why it
00:31:40.320 --> 00:31:41.402
didn't make sense and left.
00:31:41.442 --> 00:31:42.742
And then on my ride home,
00:31:43.343 --> 00:31:44.403
I had the idea of combining
00:31:44.443 --> 00:31:45.525
the story with the tour
00:31:45.565 --> 00:31:46.724
guide because nobody had
00:31:46.965 --> 00:31:47.746
ever written about all
00:31:47.786 --> 00:31:49.386
these properties that you
00:31:49.406 --> 00:31:51.449
could visit in sites where
00:31:51.489 --> 00:31:53.130
battles were or the spy
00:31:53.190 --> 00:31:54.371
operation was working.
00:31:55.090 --> 00:31:56.271
So I called him back and said, you know,
00:31:56.291 --> 00:31:56.892
I got an idea.
00:31:56.971 --> 00:31:57.531
And he liked it.
00:31:57.571 --> 00:31:58.492
And I called my publisher.
00:31:58.732 --> 00:31:59.232
He liked it.
00:32:00.212 --> 00:32:01.294
So I started researching.
00:32:01.394 --> 00:32:03.755
And then I started out
00:32:03.795 --> 00:32:04.575
talking to the local
00:32:04.595 --> 00:32:06.175
historians in Oyster Bay and Setauket,
00:32:06.195 --> 00:32:07.836
who I knew and respected,
00:32:09.076 --> 00:32:09.978
got the story from them.
00:32:10.018 --> 00:32:10.758
And then I'd go back and
00:32:10.798 --> 00:32:11.938
compare it to what Kill Me
00:32:12.038 --> 00:32:13.078
and the others had written.
00:32:14.439 --> 00:32:15.920
And rather than just saying, well,
00:32:15.940 --> 00:32:17.060
this is what really happened,
00:32:17.080 --> 00:32:18.101
I decided to do this
00:32:18.181 --> 00:32:20.122
analytical book telling
00:32:20.142 --> 00:32:21.182
what everybody was saying
00:32:21.201 --> 00:32:22.002
and then pick it apart.
00:32:23.855 --> 00:32:25.076
So that makes it unique.
00:32:25.135 --> 00:32:26.596
Both halves are unique at this point.
00:32:26.616 --> 00:32:27.616
Right.
00:32:28.196 --> 00:32:28.597
It really is.
00:32:29.298 --> 00:32:30.838
So Long Island during this
00:32:31.239 --> 00:32:33.500
seven year occupation, as you mentioned,
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:35.740
you have these patriots and
00:32:35.760 --> 00:32:36.882
then you have loyalists.
00:32:36.902 --> 00:32:39.782
So what was life like in
00:32:39.823 --> 00:32:41.063
this place you know so well
00:32:41.103 --> 00:32:42.084
during these seven years?
00:32:43.405 --> 00:32:44.288
It was pretty miserable.
00:32:44.307 --> 00:32:46.349
And ultimately it was
00:32:46.390 --> 00:32:47.090
miserable even for the
00:32:47.151 --> 00:32:50.214
Tories because the British
00:32:50.256 --> 00:32:52.858
and the Hessians couldn't really tell
00:32:54.208 --> 00:32:55.608
without a lot of work uh who
00:32:55.628 --> 00:32:56.470
was a loyalist who was a
00:32:56.509 --> 00:32:57.871
tory right so they ended up
00:32:57.911 --> 00:32:58.771
treating everybody pretty
00:32:58.791 --> 00:32:59.932
badly they they needed
00:32:59.991 --> 00:33:01.032
firewood they needed you
00:33:01.113 --> 00:33:02.673
know grain and livestock
00:33:02.714 --> 00:33:04.796
from long island to feed
00:33:04.816 --> 00:33:05.777
the troops in the city uh
00:33:06.517 --> 00:33:07.538
which is why right after
00:33:07.577 --> 00:33:08.519
the battle of long island
00:33:08.538 --> 00:33:09.579
uh general howe made a
00:33:09.619 --> 00:33:10.440
point of occupying the
00:33:10.460 --> 00:33:11.760
whole island because that
00:33:11.780 --> 00:33:12.521
was going to be his chief
00:33:12.541 --> 00:33:14.343
supply point for the troops
00:33:14.383 --> 00:33:16.404
in the city uh so you know
00:33:16.424 --> 00:33:17.325
they would send out forage
00:33:17.365 --> 00:33:18.286
parties and they would be
00:33:18.306 --> 00:33:21.048
uh taking grain uh firewood
00:33:21.087 --> 00:33:22.930
taking down barns to you know have wood
00:33:24.573 --> 00:33:25.474
hurting livestock in the
00:33:25.515 --> 00:33:27.277
city and they would send
00:33:27.357 --> 00:33:28.700
out proclamations demanding
00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:29.441
that the residents of
00:33:29.480 --> 00:33:30.442
Suffolk County send X
00:33:30.481 --> 00:33:31.903
amount of wagons of grain,
00:33:32.464 --> 00:33:33.446
X amount of livestock to
00:33:33.487 --> 00:33:35.209
the city under penalty of
00:33:36.211 --> 00:33:37.732
the military coming to make
00:33:37.772 --> 00:33:38.894
their lives even more miserable.
00:33:40.115 --> 00:33:42.538
So the Tories initially supported that.
00:33:42.577 --> 00:33:45.500
They would voluntarily meet these quotas.
00:33:46.300 --> 00:33:46.881
But then when they couldn't
00:33:46.901 --> 00:33:47.442
meet the quotas,
00:33:47.461 --> 00:33:48.722
they'd send out forage parties.
00:33:48.782 --> 00:33:50.423
They would take what they wanted.
00:33:50.503 --> 00:33:52.286
Sometimes they would give a receipt,
00:33:52.685 --> 00:33:53.486
sometimes not.
00:33:53.606 --> 00:33:55.788
And when the receipts were
00:33:57.088 --> 00:33:58.549
tried to cash in at the end of the war,
00:33:58.569 --> 00:34:00.551
the British ignored them.
00:34:00.571 --> 00:34:02.894
So it was pretty miserable.
00:34:02.913 --> 00:34:03.153
A lot of the...
00:34:05.630 --> 00:34:07.592
The soldiers were quartered
00:34:07.672 --> 00:34:09.293
in people's houses, in their barns,
00:34:10.032 --> 00:34:11.153
somewhere on their property.
00:34:11.173 --> 00:34:14.135
And it was pretty bleak.
00:34:14.856 --> 00:34:16.056
They brought disease.
00:34:16.077 --> 00:34:17.018
A lot of the Long Island
00:34:17.057 --> 00:34:17.898
residents had never been
00:34:17.918 --> 00:34:19.719
exposed to smallpox and
00:34:19.739 --> 00:34:20.780
these other diseases that
00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:21.780
the soldiers carried.
00:34:22.840 --> 00:34:23.762
There were a lot of reports
00:34:23.862 --> 00:34:25.043
of rape of women.
00:34:25.063 --> 00:34:27.264
Their husbands had fled to Connecticut.
00:34:28.405 --> 00:34:30.306
The Continental Congress
00:34:30.346 --> 00:34:31.666
actually did a report on
00:34:31.706 --> 00:34:33.628
this sexual assault by the
00:34:33.648 --> 00:34:34.548
British and the Hessians.
00:34:36.885 --> 00:34:38.286
We're talking with Bill Blyer,
00:34:39.126 --> 00:34:39.927
author of George
00:34:39.967 --> 00:34:41.827
Washington's Long Island Spy Ring,
00:34:41.927 --> 00:34:43.347
a history and tour guide.
00:34:43.367 --> 00:34:44.289
This is your fifth book.
00:34:44.349 --> 00:34:45.509
So what are you,
00:34:45.608 --> 00:34:46.789
are you working on a new book now?
00:34:48.230 --> 00:34:49.570
I wrote a book on the
00:34:49.610 --> 00:34:50.411
sinking of the steamboat
00:34:50.451 --> 00:34:53.413
Lexington in Long Island in 1840.
00:34:53.413 --> 00:34:54.632
The worst maritime accident
00:34:54.793 --> 00:34:57.373
on Long Island history was book six.
00:34:57.514 --> 00:34:58.355
I'm working on
00:34:59.577 --> 00:35:00.518
a book about the Roosevelt
00:35:00.538 --> 00:35:02.298
family's time in Manhattan,
00:35:03.059 --> 00:35:04.240
which is the companion book
00:35:04.300 --> 00:35:05.422
to my second book on the
00:35:06.143 --> 00:35:07.583
first full history of Sagamore Hill,
00:35:07.963 --> 00:35:09.324
Theodore Roosevelt's house out here.
00:35:09.344 --> 00:35:12.108
And then I'm going to do a book,
00:35:12.967 --> 00:35:13.949
starting to work also on a
00:35:13.969 --> 00:35:15.010
book on Long Island shipwrecks.
00:35:15.751 --> 00:35:16.150
Wonderful.
00:35:16.251 --> 00:35:16.510
I mean,
00:35:16.572 --> 00:35:18.753
a lot of material on Long Island to
00:35:18.793 --> 00:35:19.094
work on.
00:35:19.114 --> 00:35:19.434
Oh, plenty.
00:35:20.543 --> 00:35:22.423
So thank you so much for joining us, Bill.
00:35:22.463 --> 00:35:23.324
Anything else we should
00:35:23.704 --> 00:35:25.146
mention about the Culper spy ring,
00:35:25.206 --> 00:35:26.206
aside from your book,
00:35:26.327 --> 00:35:28.307
George Washington's Long Island Spy Ring,
00:35:28.507 --> 00:35:29.507
A History and Tour Guide?
00:35:31.829 --> 00:35:31.969
No,
00:35:32.050 --> 00:35:33.349
if anybody has any follow-up questions
00:35:33.391 --> 00:35:33.590
there,
00:35:33.630 --> 00:35:35.652
welcome to email me at BillBlyer at
00:35:35.672 --> 00:35:36.711
gmail.com.
00:35:37.873 --> 00:35:38.032
Also,
00:35:38.072 --> 00:35:39.434
if anybody would want to sign and
00:35:39.454 --> 00:35:40.974
inscribe a copy of that or
00:35:40.994 --> 00:35:41.414
the other books,
00:35:41.434 --> 00:35:43.356
they can also email me to get that.
00:35:43.376 --> 00:35:45.898
Okay, BillBlyer at gmail.com.
00:35:46.197 --> 00:35:46.697
Thank you, Bill.
00:35:47.778 --> 00:35:48.318
Thank you, Bill.
00:35:49.215 --> 00:35:50.836
And I want to thank Jonathan Lane,
00:35:50.896 --> 00:35:51.577
our producer,
00:35:51.918 --> 00:35:53.778
and all of our listeners
00:35:53.818 --> 00:35:54.579
around the world.
00:35:54.619 --> 00:35:54.858
You know,
00:35:54.878 --> 00:35:56.480
we initially thought we'd have
00:35:56.579 --> 00:35:58.521
our friends in Massachusetts tuning in,
00:35:58.561 --> 00:36:01.021
but we actually have folks all around,
00:36:01.081 --> 00:36:02.143
and every week I thank you.
00:36:02.242 --> 00:36:03.684
And if you are in one of
00:36:03.724 --> 00:36:05.063
these places and want some
00:36:05.083 --> 00:36:06.864
of our Revolution 250 gear,
00:36:06.905 --> 00:36:08.425
send Jonathan Lane an email,
00:36:08.465 --> 00:36:10.827
jlane at revolution250.org,
00:36:10.847 --> 00:36:12.507
and he will send you a set
00:36:12.547 --> 00:36:13.628
of our playing cards.
00:36:14.208 --> 00:36:17.530
So this week, folks in Belfast and Sydney,
00:36:18.217 --> 00:36:20.943
and New Bedford and Acton, Massachusetts,
00:36:21.324 --> 00:36:23.789
Wayne, New Jersey and Coolidge, Arizona.
00:36:23.829 --> 00:36:24.911
Thanks for joining us and
00:36:24.952 --> 00:36:26.114
people in those places
00:36:26.213 --> 00:36:27.195
between and beyond.
00:36:27.717 --> 00:36:29.099
And now we will be piped out
00:36:29.239 --> 00:36:30.181
on the road to Boston.