‘Dedicated to informing, preserving and promoting the Scudder family history and heritage of service.’
This summer 2026 journal is devoted to The Culper Spy Ring, Whaleboat Spies and Brave Citizens Who Saved America’s Cause during Long Island’s Occupation, Events from 1774–1784.
Culper Spies from Setauket and Scudder Spies from Huntington Whose Efforts During Long Island’s Occupation Helped Win the American Revolution & Principles for Which They Fought.
Ask people who Nathan Hale was, and many will answer that he was a spy, or even America’s first spy, who gave up his life during the Revolutionary War.
Two years after the loss of the Battle of Long Island, General Washington, saw the urgent need for intelligence about British plans that residents of occupied Long Island could provide. The Culper Spy Ring began in 1778 to augment efforts of the whaleboat spies.
The message of the shot from Concord, Massachusetts heard round the world was heard at Long Island and resonated with liberty-loving Long Islanders. If combat with the British could happen near Boston, Massachusetts, Long Islanders knew that an attack on New York and Long Island could not be far behind.
Not all Long Islanders chose to be on the side of the American Cause of Liberty, but Samuel5 Townsend, as a member of the Provincial Assembly, had already proved himself to be a man willing to engage in public service, supporting rights of the people, and in working for their interests.
After the fall of Brooklyn and the escape of Washington’s army from Long Island, reprisals against the Long Island Patriots began. Having been raised at Jericho, Samuel5 Townsend had purchased his Oyster Bay homestead in 1740 which was a waterfront property and more convenient for his shipping business that he and his brother Jacob had started.
The intersection of history and genealogy in the Culper Spy Ring reveals nuances to the reader of a human-interest side to their story with their entangled family identities that may have been hidden even from some of the spy ring’s participants.
Robert6 Townsend was not known as Samuel Culper, Jr. until the 1930s when historian, Morton Pennypacker, identified Townsend and Culper, Jr. as one and the same. Pennypacker came to his conclusion through studying examples of Culper, Jr.’s letters to Washington preserved among Washington’s papers with his handwriting
Like CAPT. WILLIAM5 SMITH SCUDDER (Moses4, Benjamin3, Thomas2 II, Thomas1 I (T)), there were others who spied for Gen. Washington who were not in the official Culper Spy Ring but who were part of the Whaleboat Spy network organized by Caleb Brewster under Maj. Tallmadge’s direction.
Benjamin5 Tallmadge and His Account of Setauket’s Jubilation at the War’s End and of the Sacrifices Made by His New Father-in-law, Declaration Signer, William4 Floyd
This issue of our journal began with a reference to scribe Nathaniel5 Scudder and his Monmouth, New Jersey committee’s words in 1774. As they expressed their support to establish the Continental Congress to petition their British colonial government about its abuses of power against them,
Many of New York’s Patriot generation could remember their parents’ suffering under British governors who arbitrarily revoked rights of the majority religious dissenting population in 1693–1708.
Family relationships were complicated by war. Richard4 Floyd (Richard3, Richard2, Richard1) was one of spy Robert6Townsend’s Tory relatives and a 1st cousin to William4 Floyd.