On Saturday, June 3, Setauket historian Beverly C. Tyler led members and friends of the Rocky Point Historical Society on a journey back in time to the days of the Culper Spy Ring. The story has been made famous with the television series “Turn.”
The tour began at the headquarters of the Three Village Historical Society where Tyler, wearing 18th-century clothing, took on the personality and true story of Abraham Woodhull, and continued on to the site of the birthplace and farm of Woodhull, to the burial grounds at St. George’s Manor Cemetery and the Setauket Presbyterian Cemetery.
Born in Setauket, Abraham Woodhull (1750 –1826) was a leading member of the Culper Spy Ring in New York City and Setauket during the American Revolution using the alias Samuel Culper, Sr., a play on Culpeper County, Virginia. The ring provided Washington with valuable information on the British Army headquartered in and operating out of New York, from October 1778 until the end of the American Revolutionary War. After the United States gained independence, Woodhull served as the first judge in Suffolk County. Other local residents who took part in the spy ring were Austin Roe, Caleb Brewster and Anna Smith Strong.
For more information on the Three Village Historical Society’s upcoming historical walking tours, call 631-751-3730 or visit www.tvhs.org.
