Counterfeiting plot discovery

One of Townsend’s most valuable and memorable discoveries concerned a plot by the British to ruin the American economy by flooding the country with counterfeit dollars. American political and military leaders were well-aware of these intentions and understood the potential ramifications of a worthless dollar. In early 1780, Townsend received some intelligence about the British belief that the war would not last much longer as a result of a disastrous depreciation of the dollar. The most crucial part of Townsend’s report was that the British had procured “several reams of paper made for the last emission struck by Congress.” This was terrible news for American leaders because whereas before the British were forced to counterfeit money on paper that was similar to the official paper, now they had the authentic paper, and thus distinguishing between real and fake money would be virtually impossible. As a result, Congress was forced to recall all its bills in circulation; a major ordeal but one that saved the war-effort by not allowing counterfeit money to flood the market.[18]

Counterintelligence

Townsend warned his superiors of spies in their midst. At one point, he warned Benjamin Tallmadge that Christoper Duychenik was an agent of New York City Mayor David Mathews. Townsend warned that Mathews was under the direction of Governor William Tryon. Townsend also believed that if these men found out about the intelligence report, they would immediately suspect Townsend, indicating Townsend’s potential association with high-level officials.

Disinformation

After the French had joined the war on the side of the colonists a French fleet was set to land and disembark troops at Newport, Rhode Island. The problem with this plan was that the British controlled Long Island and New York City and had large amounts of influence in Long Island Sound. The British got wind of the French plans and began preparing to intercept the smaller French fleet before the French soldiers could make landfall. When George Washington learned of the British plans through the Culper Spy Ring he was able to successfully bluff the British forces into believing an attack was planned on New York City. Through feeding the enemy false information on his plans Washington was able to keep the British occupied while the French were able to safely land their forces.

Suspicion

A number of events caused Townsend to become extremely suspicious and led to his using great caution regarding spy activities.

One involved his nephew, James Townsend. After Washington and Woodhull had a brief falling-out, James became the new courier between Robert and Tallmadge. James’ cover story was that he was a Tory visiting family in rebel-controlled territory and was seeking to recruit men for the British army. When James visited the Deausenberry family, he acted the part well enough to convince the secret Patriots that he was really a Tory. John Deausenberry dragged James to the local Patriot headquarters, but after Washington’s personal intervention, James was set free. This event not only caused anger towards his nephew for Robert, but illustrated how easy it was to get caught. As a result of this event, Townsend often refused to report intelligence in writing for the remainder of his spying career.

Another event revolved around the arrest of Hercules Mulligan by Benedict Arnold (by then serving the British). Mulligan eventually became an agent of the Culper Ring and was responsible for a number of intelligence reports. Mulligan had previously been arrested for agitating anti-British sentiment, and Arnold had him arrested for having questionable American contacts. Although he was released after no evidence showed him to be a spy, his short captivity further convinced Townsend of the dangers he faced. This event led Tallmadge to direct Culper Ring activities more towards tactical intelligence for Tallmadge’s dragoons rather than undercover operations in New York.

As the end of the war drew near, and American forces focused on Yorktown and Lord Charles Cornwallis, the Culper Ring became less significant for Washington. However, even after the British Parliament overruled King George III and ordered a cessation of arms, Washington remained skeptical of British intentions. Reports suggested that British forces in New York still continued to fortify their lines. Nevertheless, Culper activity was limited and ended for a short time. However, when a British delegate reached Paris in 1782 to discuss peace negotiations, Washington reactivated the Ring. Upon this request to reactivate, Townsend wrote what is likely his last report on September 19, 1782:

The last packet…has indeed brought the clearest and unequivocal Proofs that the independence of America is unconditionally to be acknowledged, nor will there be any conditions insisted on for those who have joined the King’s Standard…Sir Guy himself says that he thinks it not improbable that the next Packet may bring orders for an evacuation of N. York.

A fleet is getting ready to sail for the Bay of Fundy about the first of October to transport a large number of Refugees to that Quarter…Indeed, I never saw such general distress and dissatisfaction in my life as is painted in the countenance of every Tory at N.Y.

Life after the Culper Ring

After the war, Townsend ended his business connections in New York and moved back to Oyster Bay. Townsend never married, sharing his family’s home and growing old with his sister Sally.

Townsend likely had a son, Robert Townsend, Jr., and it is unclear who the child’s mother was. One possibility is Townsend’s housekeeper, Mary Banvard, whom Robert Sr. left $500 in his will.Another possibility is that the mother was a Culper Ring member known today only as Agent 355, however, this possibility is unlikely. Questions remain about whether Robert, Jr. was indeed Townsend’s son. Solomon Townsend once claimed that Townsend’s brother, William, was actually the father.

Robert Townsend died on March 7, 1838, at the age of eighty-four. He managed to take his alternate identity to the grave. The identity of Samuel Culper, Jr. was discovered in 1930 by New York historian Morton Pennypacker. The Townsend home in Oyster Bay is now a museum known as the Raynham Hall Museum.

All content courtesy Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Townsend_(spy)

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She grew up in New York City, the fourth of seven children in a well-to-do, strict Calvinist family. Her mother, a poet, died when Julia was five. She had access to a vast library of modern literature her brother brought from Europe, and her family’s acquaintances included Charles Dickens, Margaret Fuller, and Charles Sumner. Howe moved to Boston and married Samuel Gridley Howe in 1843 who was a physician, reformer, and founder of the Perkins School for the Blind. They raised six children in South Boston; she gave birth to the youngest when she was forty years old. Her daughter, author Laura E. Richards, wrote ninety books and numerous children’s stories, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1917, along with her sister, Maud Howe Elliott, for their biography of their mother, Julia Ward Howe (1819 – 1910).

Howe studied languages, attended lectures and began to write extensively. Her first poetry collection published in 1853 was intensely personal, entitled Passion-Flowers. She wrote an anonymous collection and several plays, all which hinted at her stifling marriage. She traveled extensively and in 1860 published a book, A Trip to Cuba. It received criticism from abolitionists for its derogatory views on blacks. Though she supported freeing the slaves and considered herself an abolitionist, Ms. Howe did not agree they should receive equal rights. She had a troubled marriage, separated from Samuel in 1852, he died in 1876.

Howe was inspired to write The Battle Hymn of the Republic after she and her husband visited Washington, DC in 1861 and met with President Abraham Lincoln. Her friend, James Freeman Clarke suggested she re-write the words to John Brown’s Body, which she did, and it was set to William Steffe’s music. It was published in The Atlantic Monthly in February, 1862 and became the most popular song for the Union during the American Civil War. With her new-found fame, she published highly influential works supporting pacifism and women’s suffrage. Howe founded the New England Woman Suffrage Association, presided over the Association of American Women, and was the first woman to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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Richards grew up in Massachusetts, her parents both abolitionists, her mother also an activist poet who crafted the Union’s theme song during the American Civil War. She married and moved to Gardiner, Maine to raise three children. This explains Richards’ love for winter and her soft-spot for Maine, as in her feel-good story, Maine to the Rescue. Richards’ literary nonsense poem, Eletelephony continues to delight children and their parents who rediscover it. It was adapted and aired on the enduring children’s show, Sesame Street.

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She was elected to the Wasilla city council in 1992 and became mayor of Wasilla in 1996. In 2003, after an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor, she was appointed chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, responsible for overseeing the state’s oil and gas fields for safety and efficiency. In 2006, she became the youngest person and the first woman to be elected Governor of Alaska.

Since her resignation as governor, she has endorsed and campaigned for the Tea Party movement as well as several candidates in multiple election cycles, prominently including Donald Trump for president in 2016. From 2010 to 2015, she provided political commentary for Fox News. On April 3, 2014, Palin premiered her TV show, Amazing America with Sarah Palin, on the Sportsman Channel, which ran until February 12, 2015.

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Romney was born to American parents living in the Mormon colonies in Mexico; events during the Mexican Revolution forced his family to flee back to the United States when he was a child. The family lived in several states and ended up in Salt Lake City, Utah, where they struggled during the Great Depression. Romney worked in a number of jobs, served as a Mormon missionary in the United Kingdom, and attended several colleges in the U.S. but did not graduate from any of them. In 1939 he moved to Detroit and joined the American Automobile Manufacturers Association, where he served as the chief spokesman for the automobile industry during World War II and headed a cooperative arrangement in which companies could share production improvements. He joined Nash-Kelvinator in 1948, and became the chief executive of its successor, American Motors Corporation, in 1954. There he turned around the struggling firm by focusing all efforts on the compact Rambler car. Romney mocked the products of the “Big Three” automakers as “gas-guzzling dinosaurs” and became one of the first high-profile, media-savvy business executives. Devoutly religious, he presided over the Detroit Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Having entered politics by participating in a state constitutional convention to rewrite the Michigan Constitution during 1961–1962, Romney was elected Governor of Michigan in 1962. Re-elected by increasingly large margins in 1964 and 1966, he worked to overhaul the state’s financial and revenue structure, greatly expanding the size of state government and introducing Michigan’s first state income tax. Romney was a strong supporter of the American Civil Rights Movement. He briefly represented moderate Republicans against conservative Republican Barry Goldwater during the 1964 U.S. presidential election. He requested the intervention of federal troops during the 1967 Detroit riot.

Initially a front runner for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 1968 election, he proved an ineffective campaigner and fell behind Richard Nixon in polls. After a mid-1967 remark that his earlier support for the Vietnam War had been due to a “brainwashing” by U.S. military and diplomatic officials in Vietnam, his campaign faltered even more and he withdrew from the contest in early 1968. After Nixon’s election as president, he appointed Romney as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Romney’s ambitious plans for housing production increases for the poor, and for open housing to desegregate suburbs, were modestly successful but often thwarted by Nixon. Romney left the administration at the start of Nixon’s second term in 1973. Returning to private life, he advocated volunteerism and public service, and headed the National Center for Voluntary Action and its successor organizations from 1973 through 1991. He also served as a regional representative of the Twelve within his church.

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