AKA Samuel Culper Jr — Robert Townsend

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Robert Townsend was a member of the Culper Ring and operated in New York City.  For most of the war, his identity was known only to Abraham Woodhull who was instructed never to tell his name to anyone, even to Washington.  Motivated by Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, the British harassment of his family, and his relationship with Abraham Woodhull and despite his Quaker faith, Townsend volunteered for a logistics post in the Continental Army. 

Townsend lived in New York city and collected all the useful information.  He would mix with British officers and refugees in various coffee houses and other public places paying attention to the movements of troops, supplies, and ships.   He would then encode his information and pass it on to Culper Senior (Woodhull). 

Townsend sent his first dispatch on June 29, 1779, nine days after Woodhull informed Washington that he had a contact in New York. This first piece of intelligence was designed to look like a letter between two Loyalists. In it, Townsend stated that he received information from a Rhode Islander who gathered from British troops that two British divisions “are to make excursion into Connecticut… and very soon.”  He next discovered a plot by the British to ruin the American economy by flooding the country with counterfeit dollars.   Townsend warned his superiors of the movements of British spies and saved the French Fleet from ambush. 

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