WEBVTT
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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.
00:07:16.019 --> 00:07:17.658
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
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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
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Woodhull's father, the local minister.
00:08:04.158 --> 00:08:05.800
and they portray Woodhull Sr.
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as an ardent loyalist
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complaining with Simcoe
00:08:09.744 --> 00:08:11.045
about his son's activity
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and how the patriots are
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ruining the country when in
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fact the elder Woodhull was
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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
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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?
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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
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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.