Anna Strong (14 April 1740 – 12 August 1812) was a patriot spy during the American Revolutionary War. Strong, the wife of New York tavern owner and militia captain Selah Strong, was a member of Abraham Woodhull's Culper Ring during the war, assisting George Washington in collecting information on British activities during the war.
Biography[]
Anna Strong was born on 14 April 1740, the daughter of Colonel William Smith, the clerk of New York's Suffolk County and a judge of the Common Pleas court, and Margaret Lloyd Smith. Strong was an amiable woman, and she was betrothed to marry Abraham Woodhull until his father Richard Woodhull disapproved of the marriage due to her support of patriots and the Woodhull family's loyalist sympathies. However, Abraham never forgot about her, and they remained on good terms. In 1776, she convinced Woodhull to accept Benjamin Tallmadge's request that he help the Continental Army on a secret mission, and Woodhull founded the Culper Ring. Strong was used by Woodhull to signal Continental Lieutenant Caleb Brewster by hanging a black petticoat from her clothing line, and she helped the Culper Ring in passing information to Washington. She died in 1812 on Long Island, having separated from her their husband when he moved to Connecticut with their children.