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Girl Who Spied for Washington Died on Wallabout Prison Ship Say Child Was Born to Her in Hulk of Vessel
This grotesque headline, sad and yet deliciously wicked, appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle on May 30, 1948. The Culper Spy Ring story behind it has been eagerly repeated ever since by writers who refer to the unidentified spy as Agent 355. Or the Mysterious Lady. Or Madame X.
Here is a mystery that lingered long after the story of the spy ring was pieced together. And there's more.
The father of the child, the lover of Agent 355, was said to be the lifelong bachelor Robert Townsend of Oyster Bay, known in the revolutionary spy business as Culper Jr. Agent 355, the story goes, was captured by the British and thrown aboard the prison ship Jersey, where she later died. But the love-child survived and became a respectable citizen named Robert Townsend Jr. The problem is that the story, though widely believed, is not true.
Is this, then, an exculpation of Robert Townsend? Not exactly. Through some very nice detective work by two skeptical writers working independently of each other, Culper Jr. is still found to have a skeleton in his closet.
The fact is that Townsend did have a son named Robert Townsend Jr. born out of wedlock. But Robert Jr.'s mother was not in the Culper Spy Ring. She was Mary Banvard, an immigrant from Nova Scotia, who was Townsend's housekeeper in his New York apartment. Robert Jr. was not born until Feb. 1, 1784 - his mother was then 24 and Townsend 30 - after the war was over and the spy ring...