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The Culper Ring LbNA #60108

Owner:Dulcimer Dame
Plant date:Nov 14, 2011
Location:
City:Coventry
County:Tolland
State:Connecticut
Boxes:7
Found by: Nairon (7)
Last found:Jan 29, 2023
Status:FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Last edited:Sep 26, 2018
The Culper Spy Ring


The Culper Spy Ring Series is hidden at the Hale Homestead. Park in the lot and follow the wide path at the back of the lot into the woods.

The Culper Spy Ring was started after Nathan Hale was hanged for spying. Nathan Hale was a young patriot spy from Coventry, CT who was caught and hanged by the British because he was caught carrying secret information hidden in his shoe. Walk to the end of the stone wall on your right. marked by a tree with yellow rings. Turn right and take an immediate left on a much smaller path that parallels a stone wall. Keeping the wall on your left, look for a large oak tree with many boulders around it on your left. Stop on the path next to the tree. At 80 degrees you will see an old stump with a boulder in front of it. Next to the boulder by the stump you will find a ring.

George Washington knew he needed someone to get information to him. Together with Major Benjamin Tallmadge they organized a secret service. Abraham Woodhull was considered the leader of the Long Island spies. He lived in Setauket on Long Island. His code name was Samuel Culper, Sr. He pretended to be a Loyalist. He gathered information himself, and collected it from other spies in the ring and passed it on to Ben Tallmadge. Return to the path the way you were walking. Pass a group of large evergreens on your left. As the trail turns slightly right, look to the left for a huge 3 sister oak tree, about 12 paces off the trail. The Culper Ring, carved by Wolfy, is waiting in this tree.

Robert Townsend was Culper, Jr. He traveled into New York for his business, gathered information from the British, and passed in on to Culper Sr. They tried different types of codes to keep their information secret. First they used a “mask” to hide their message within a letter. Return to the trail and follow it as it crosses a larger trail. Walk past 2 large depressions (could have been foundations) on the right. Look for a group of huge flat boulders on your left. Step down and around the large 2 sister stump, and look for the large black birch growing at the corner of one of the boulders. The secret mask is hiding in a cave to the right of this tree. There is a letter and a mask in the box, also. Holding the mask like an hourglass, slide it across the enclosed letter and see if you can find the hidden message in each paragraph. The 2nd message refers to a message that would have been written in invisible in at the end of the letter.

The spy ring also used invisible ink. They called it sympathetic stain. The ink was disclosed with chemicals they kept in a wooden Medicine Box. Retrace you steps to the larger path you just crossed – just past the 2 large holes. Turn left and follow this path though 2 stone walls. Look ahead for a triangular shaped rock. From this rock walk at 200 degrees to a tall oak with a large hole at the base. In this tree you will find the Medicine Box used to hold the disclosing chemicals, carved by Wolfy. Please rehide well.

They also experimented with numeric and alphabetic codes already known in Europe. Eventually Talmadge created his own code dictionary using some of these ideas. Culper, Sr. was722. Culper, Jr. was 723 and Long Island Sound was 729. Return to the stone wall you just passed, and take the trail to the left, just before the wall. Follow this up and down over the broken down wall, and “step” over a dead tree. Quickly you will pass through another stone wall. Turn right and go to the corner. Walk 9 paces to the first high spot of the wall; just past the tree. Behind this spot, low in the wall, Culper Sr. is hiding.

Caleb Brewster grew up in Setauket. He was an important member of the Culper Ring. He would pass information from Abraham Woodhull in Setauket to Ben Talmadge in Fairfield, CT. Caleb and his crew would row whaleboats across Long Island Sound, in spite of the danger of British frigates patrolling the Sound. Return to the opening in the stone wall and follow the trail ahead of you, going north. Walk through a stone wall, pass a trail on you left – stay right walking in a NE direction. As the trail bends right, look left for a break in the stone wall marked by a large yellow birch with curly bark. Pass through the wall and walk 27 steps left to a large rock. From this rock face the stone wall. Behind the 3 sister tree, low in the wall, the whaleboat is hiding, waiting to deliver its next secret message.

When Caleb (725) visited Woodhull on 729, he had to be sneaky. He hid his boat in one of six coves. Culper Sr’s neighbor, Anna Strong, helped him to locate 725. Her husband was being held on a British prison ship so she wanted to help the spies. When she hung her black petticoat on the clothesline, it meant Brewster was in town; and the number of handkerchiefs she hung on the line told Woodhull which cove he was in. The British never suspected her of being a spy. Go back through the wall and continue on the path until it comes to a “T”. Take the left fork, along the side of the cornfield, and follow it until you see boulders strewn all around. Stop at a huge boulder on the right of the trail. Look to your left to see 2 smaller boulders of similar size next to each other. Behind these boulders is the petticoat on the clothesline. The logbook for this series is in this box.

Men who were spies had to make hard choices. They put their families in danger. If they were caught, they would have been killed. They made the choice to be spies because they believed they should have their freedom, which meant they had to win the war. Return to the “T” intersection and go left. At the end of the wall, turn left and follow the trail back to your car.