6. Strong’s Neck: Anna and Selah Strong Grave in the Smith-Strong Family Graveyard

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According to Alexander Rose’s book, Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ringon which the show TURN is based on, Anna Strong is only mentioned once in the Culper letters, designated as “the lady” and numbered 355 in the secret code. Anna accompanied Woodhull on one recorded trip to New York City, as the British were less likely to suspect and search  “respectable married men traveling to see in-laws with their equally respectable wives.” This was done out of “sheer civility,” a concept probably quite foreign to spycraft today.
She was also a good friend of Caleb Brewster, the daring whaleboat captain who carried intelligence over Long Island Sound, also from Setauket. Anna was married to Selah Strong, who was (as the show depicts) jailed for being a suspected rebel.

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The lack of references to Anna specifically in the letters do not necessarily indicate that her role has been exaggerated over the years, and likely it was to hide her identity. She stayed on in Strong’s Neck even after her husband’s release and relocation to Patriot-controlled Connecticut, and “appears to have stayed on the family estate to assist the Setauket Spies,” writes Beverly C. Tyler, historian at Three Village Historical Society. Her property is mentioned several times in the letters. A sign of her importance in the spy ring may be intimated by Washington’s visit to the Strong family following the war.
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Well detailed in Washington Spies, spycraft was a burgeoning practice, and undercover spies were looked down upon as “beneath contempt,” working for pay and disguising themselves. The Culper Ring adamantly refused to work for pay, apart from reimbursements, and all of the members would keep their Revolutionary activities secret all the way to their graves. Even Benjamin Tallmadge, who later becomes a US Congressman, omits the spy activities from his autobiography referring to it merely as a “private correspondence with some persons in New York” that was “beneficial to the Commander-in-Chief”
In the television series, Woodhull and Anna were once betrothed and their work in the spy ring bring them closer together, and into an affair. In actuality, Anna was about a decade older than Woodhull and there is no evidence to suggest they were in any form of romantic relationship, as entertaining as it may be for modern day viewers.