Person:Robert Townsend (23)

About Robert Townsend

Robert Townsend (November 25, 1753 – March 7, 1838)[1][2] was a member of the Culper Ring during the American Revolution. Townsend operated in New York City with the aliases “Samuel Culper, Jr.” and “723,” and gathered information as a service to General George Washington. He is one of the least known operatives in the spy ring, once demanding that Abraham Woodhull (aka “Samuel Culper”) never tell his name to anyone, not even Washington.[3]

Background

Townsend was the third son of eight children of Samuel and Sarah Townsend from Oyster Bay, New York. Samuel was a Whig-slanted politician who owned a store in Oyster Bay. Little is known about Robert’s early life. His mother was an Episcopalian and his father was a liberal Quaker. He[who?] held patriotic feelings towards his country but was a Loyalist. Robert matured in an atmosphere in which his father routinely acted in ways that were considered dangerous by traditional Quakers.[4]

Despite his father’s political battles, young Robert showed little interest in public service. Samuel arranged for Robert to apprentice during his mid-teens with the House of Templeton & Stewart, a merchant firm. During this time, Robert lived and worked among soldiers and residents of Holy Ground,[5] New York City’s biggest red light district.[6] Templeton & Stewart catered to the working-class residents of this district. Ultimately, Townsend’s early years were dedicated to making a fortune and not demonstrating his underlying patriotism, which would have undermined his financial goals.[7]

Townsend fared well during the war in financial terms, operating a store even as he was spying for Washington. Between May 1781 and July 1783, he brought in £16,786, while his expenditures amounted to £15,161, for a profit of £1,625 over that span of time.[8]

Into the Spy Ring

A number of factors led Townsend to the Culper Spy Ring, including the influence of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, British harassment of his family, and his relationship with Woodhull.

Townsend's Quaker upbringing placed him at odds with the thought of fighting the British forces occupying America. Strict Quaker philosophy called for an adherence to pacifism. In this case, violence was prohibited. However, Pennsylvania experienced a break between "political" Quakers and "religious" Quakers during the 1750s. Essentially, the latter accused the former of breaking with traditional values, resulting in the resigning of "political" Quakers from office and leading to a wave of purification within the Quaker movement. The renewed and obedient Quakers pledged to embrace non-violence and to never revolt against a legal government. Thus, Quakers emerged as the strongest supporters of British rule.[9]

Townsend was torn between his moderate-Quaker upbringing and this fervent Quaker revival, but he ultimately turned his back on pacifism as a result of Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense. Paine had also been brought up in the Quaker tradition, and he advocated in Common Sense the early Quaker views of struggling against corruption and narcissism. However, Paine also advocated resistance as the means to achieve those goals, putting him directly at odds with the newly reformed Quaker movement. Paine argued that the pacifists-at-any-price were not authentic Quakers. His pamphlet inspired a small number of Quakers to join the struggle against Britain, including Townsend. Thus, a few months after Paine's pamphlet was published, Townsend volunteered for a logistics post in the Continental Army, which would not require him to kill.[10]

Another factor that led to Townsend joining the fight against British rule was the treatment of his family by British soldiers in Oyster Bay. A number of British officers thought that anti-British sentiment had been ingrained into the colonists' spirit, and they believed that "it should be thrash'd out of them [because] New England has poyson'd the whole."[11] This led to numerous incidents of violence and pillage directed at colonists. On November 19, 1778, one such instance drove Townsend to the Patriot cause.[12] Colonel John Graves Simcoe of the Queen's Rangers and roughly 300 of his men were stationed in Oyster Bay during the winter months. Simcoe took the Townsend home as his headquarters, and he and his men used the home when and however they wanted. Townsend's father Samuel was distraught after his prized apple orchard was torn down by Simcoe's men. Adding to the insult, the Townsends were forced to swear allegiance to the King or go to prison.[13]

A final factor was Townsend's relationship with Abraham Woodhull. Woodhull knew Townsend as a result of their both lodging at a boarding house run by Woodhull's brother-in-law. Woodhull was also a descendant of Oyster Bay's founder Captain John Underhill, and Townsend may have been directed to the boardinghouse by Underhill. Woodhull may have also known about Townsend's father's Whiggish political beliefs, as he was well known throughout Long Island.[14] Woodhull as a recruiter, and Townsend as the recruited, knew and trusted each other well enough by June 1779, that Townsend eagerly accepted when Woodhull made his pitch to Townsend to join a new spy ring for Washington.[15]

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.[24]

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.[25] Another possibility is that the mother was a Culper Ring member known today only as Agent 355,[24] however this possibility is unlikely.[26] Questions remain about whether Robert, Jr. was indeed Townsend's son. Solomon Townsend once claimed that Townsend's brother, William, was actually the father.[25]

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.[27] The Townsend home in Oyster Bay is now a museum known as the Raynham Hall Museum.

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Robert Townsend (November 25, 1753 – March 7, 1838) was a member of the Culper Ring during the American Revolution. He operated in New York City with the aliases "Samuel Culper, Jr." and "723" and gathered information as a service to General George Washington. He is one of the least-known operatives in the spy ring and once demanded Abraham Woodhull ("Samuel Culper") never to tell his name to anyone, even to Washington.