Special agents, clandestine meetings, covert operations, spy networks, and secret committees. These were among the tools employed against the British before, during, and after their occupation of Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War. The cast of characters includes the Founding Father who planned and executed covert meetings and operations, the spymaster who created a network of informants, the Quaker midwife who risked her life to cross enemy lines, and the tavern keeper who concealed messages in balls of yarn.

Two main factors contributed to Philly’s ascendance in espionage: the city’s role as defacto capital of the rebellion and the home of the Second Continental Congress, and the British occupation of 1777-78, which presented numerous opportunities for espionage while fostering a culture of suspicion and deception among the divided populace.

After the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts in April 1775, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia that July, noted a store of gunpowder held in the Royal Arsenal in Bermuda. Benjamin Franklin conspired with Robert Morris, then vice-president of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, to mount a covert operation designed to acquire the cache of gunpowder.

On August 14, two ships met off the coast of Bermuda and sent a raiding party of patriots ashore. “An American sailor was lowered into the arsenal through an opening in the roof, and the doors opened from the inside,” according to the CIA dossier, Intelligence in the War of Independence. “The barrels of gunpowder were rolled to waiting Bermudian whaleboats and transported to the American ships. 12 days later, half of the powder was delivered to Philadelphia and half to American forces at Charleston.”

While the CIA praised Washington’s skill in managing intelligence, agency historians noted a failure that doomed one attempted covert mission. “Hearing independently of the Bermuda powder, Washington dispatched ships to purchase or seize it. Lacking a centralized intelligence authority, he was unaware of the Franklin-Morris success. When Washington’s ships arrived in Bermuda in October 1775, the gunpowder had been gone for two months and British ships patrolled Bermuda waters.”

The Cradle of Espionage

By September, Congress had created the Secret Committee, with Philadelphians Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, John Dickinson, and Thomas Willing among its members. Tasked with furtively procuring and distributing military supplies and selling gunpowder to approved privateers, the Secret Committee obtained information about Tory ammunition depots, mounted operations to plunder British supplies, and employed oversea agents to gather intelligence.

“It arranged the purchase of military stores through intermediaries so as to conceal the fact that the Continental Congress was the true purchaser [and] used foreign flags to protect its vessels from the British fleet,” noted the CIA. “The Committee kept its transactions secret and destroyed many of its records to assure the confidentiality of its work.”

In November 1775, Congress created another committee to correspond with “our friends in Great Britain and other parts of the world.” Recognized by the CIA as “America’s first foreign intelligence directorate,” the committee “devised codes and ciphers, funded propaganda activities, authorized the opening of private mail, acquired foreign publications for use in analysis, established a courier system, and developed a maritime capability apart from that of the Navy.”

The Founding Father

As one of the committee’s original members, Franklin wasted no time in arranging clandestine meetings with Julien Alexandre Achard de Bonvouloir, a French agent traveling under cover as a Flemish merchant. The meetings, held at Carpenters’ Hall, were to lay the groundwork for French assistance in the war for independence. Similarly, Franklin was key to the “covert action plan” authorized by the Continental Congress on February 15, 1776 to induce Canadians to join the fight for independence from Britain.

Franklin also had a hand in reviewing intercepted Tory and British mail for useful intelligence and disguising leaflets that encouraged Hessian mercenaries to quit the British cause in exchange for free land. His appointment to the American mission in Paris, France in 1776 gave him the base from which to run a flotilla of Irish and French privateers. “Success in intercepting British vessels was so great that the British accused their captains of taking bribes from the Americans to surrender their ships,” according to the CIA.

“With Franklin’s arrival in France… the vital French mission became an intelligence and propaganda center for Europe, an unofficial diplomatic representation, a coordinating facility for aid from America’s secret allies, and a recruiting station for such French officers as Lafayette and Kalb. On February 6, 1778, the French-American treaty of alliance was signed. On March 30, 1778, Franklin [was] received at the French Court as representative of the United States of America, and on July 7 of that year, Comte d’Estaing’s French fleet cast anchor in the Delaware River. France was in the war. The mission to Paris had succeeded.”

The Spymaster

Months before General William Howe and the British Army took Philadelphia in September 1777, George Washington, the Continental Army Commander in Chief, ordered Major General Thomas Mifflin to establish an intelligence operation in the city. Born in Philadelphia, Mifflin would go on to become the first Governor of Pennsylvania. He recruited Colonel Elias Boudinot to manage a checkpoint and informants on the outskirts of the city and Major John Clark, a native of Lancaster County, to recruit and run a network of agents in Philadelphia to observe and report on British troop strength, movements, war plans, and plundering missions in the countryside.

Clark set up shop in what is now Newtown Square. He built “a large network of loyal, unassuming men and women, including farmers, merchants, and others in high society who regularly mingled with British officers,” according to the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence. “Through constant observation, they gathered information on enemy troop movements and numbers, naval maneuvers, artillery emplacements, checkpoints, morale, and supply issues.”

Clark’s first dispatches to Washington at White Marsh gave a more accurate account of British losses at the Battle of Germantown, which were heavier than previously thought, and plans for attacking Continental Army forts on the Delaware that the British eventually captured, although at greater cost, thanks to Clark. Posing as a disgruntled Quaker angry at the rebels for plundering his home, Clark contacted Howe with an offer to spy for the British, assuring the general that he “was determined to risque my all in procuring him intelligence.” The ploy worked, and Washington instructed Clark to feed Howe false information about troop movements and plans to retake Philadelphia.

“Washington and Clark developed a plot to alleviate two of the General’s persistent concerns: that Sir Henry Clinton would dispatch part of his army occupying New York to Philadelphia, and that General Howe would learn the true nature of the great disparity in numbers between his army and Washington’s,” David Ritchey wrote in his master thesis for the University of North Texas. The two-prong scheme consisted of misinforming Howe about the number of troops under Washington’s command and feigning preparations for an attack against the British in New York City. “Major Clark’s success in Philadelphia owed to the boldness of his agents and the near perfect concealment of their identities,” Ritchey concluded. “Some of his agents were arrested for various minor offenses, yet the British seem to have never discovered their clandestine employment.”

Clark went on to serve in various Pennsylvania Regiments, retiring in 1783 and returning to York to resume his law practice. Other than a sketch imagining what he may have looked like, “No pictures are available [of] Clark, perhaps because he was such a good spy,” noted the Independence Hall Association.

Washington communicated directly with some of his agents. After losing to the British at the Battle of Brandywine, he sent Captain Allen McLane a list of 27 questions related to enemy troop strength, movements, and equipment. As the British were preparing to leave Philadelphia in June 1778, Washington dispatched McLane and Major Alexander Clough to enter the city as soon as possible to gather whatever intelligence they could.

The Quaker Midwife

Born in Ireland in 1729, Lydia Darragh and her husband emigrated to Philadelphia in 1763. By the time of the British occupation, she was a mother of five, working as a nurse and midwife, and active in the Quaker community. The Darraghs’ eldest son, Charles, was a lieutenant in the Continental Army, camped at White Marsh late in 1777.

With his headquarters across the street, General Howe commandeered a large room in the rear of the Darragh home on South 2nd Street for staff meetings, allowing the family to occupy the rest of the house. Accounts of how Lydia spied on the British as they made plans in her parlor appeared in print throughout the 1800s, including American Quarterly Review (1827), The Child’s History of the United States (1831), Godey’s Lady’s Book (1845), Heroic Women of History (1855), and Philadelphia Inquirer (1879). The 2025 book, Lydia’s Tale: The Mystery of Lydia Darragh, Irish Quaker, Patriot, by Robert Fanelli, is the most in-depth. 

The Darraghs’ great-granddaughter, Margaret Porter Newton, gave this version in the May 24, 1891 edition of the Philadelphia Times: “For some time she sent little items of information, gathered from various sources, to General Washington’s camp. These related to the strength of the British forces, etc., and were written by her husband on scraps of paper, which she concealed under the covers of the large mould buttons then worn, covered in the same material of which the coat was made. My grandfather, then a boy of 14, would, with those, make his way to the American camp, give them to his brother, who could decipher them and carry the information to General Washington.”

Sources differ on Lydia’s role in warning Washington about Howe’s intention to attack the Continental Army at White Marsh. On December 2, 1777, the Darraghs were informed that there would be a meeting in their house and told to go to bed early. They would be called when the meeting was over so they could extinguish the candles and fire. Lydia Darragh eavesdropped on the meeting, and the next day, under the cover story of traveling to a grain mill in Frankford, informed a Continental Army officer of Howe’s plan to attack the encampment at White Marsh.

‘Uncorroborated and Implausible’

The CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence dismisses all of Darragh’s story as “uncorroborated” and her ruse for passing through enemy lines to buy flour as “implausible,” while casting doubt on her use of a sewing needle packet to hide messages. “Some espionage historians have questioned the credibility of the best-known story of Darragh’s espionage—that she supposedly overheard British commanders planning a surprise night attack against Washington’s army at White Marsh.”

Reluctantly, I became open to the possibility that Darragh’s story was more family legend than fact—until I found a copy of the journal of Colonel Elias Boudinot, the Continental Army intelligence officer. His handwritten manuscript sold at auction for $1,050 in 1891 and soon was transcribed and published. In it, Boudinot confirms the White Marsh story, down to the details of Lydia stopping at the Rising Sun Tavern, pretending to buy flour and concealing her message in a needle kit.

Boudinot wrote, “I dined at a small Post at the rising Sun abt three miles from the City. After Dinner a little poor looking insignificant Old Woman came in & solicited leave to go into the Country to buy some flour. While we were asking some Questions, she walked up to me and put into my hands a dirty old needle book, with various small pockets in it. On Opening the needle book, I could not find any thing till I got to the last Pocket, Where I found a piece of Paper rolled up into the form of a Pipe Shank. On unrolling it I found information that Genl Howe was coming out the next morning with 5,000 Men—13 pieces of Cannon—Baggage Waggons, and 11 Boats on Waggon Wheels. On comparing this with other information I found it true, and immediately rode Post to head Quarters.”

Here is where accounts of the story disagree yet again. Darragh’s great-granddaughter and others insist that she never met with Boudinot, but actually passed her information directly to Captain Charles Craig, who informed Washington of the impending British assault. Newton also took exception with Boudinot’s description of Lydia. “She was not an old woman, being only forty-eight and… of fair complexion, light hair, very delicate in appearance, and extremely neat.”

Meanwhile, that same day, December 3, Clark notified Washington that a British sergeant told one on his spies that his troops “had received orders to hold themselves in readiness when called for, and to draw two days provisions.” Should the enemy move, Clark warned Washington, “it will be sudden and rapid.”

Howe launched his attack the following night. The plan was to draw the patriots out into battle, but, having been forewarned, Washington held his reinforced positions. After two days of inconclusive skirmishes, known either as The Battle of Edge Hill or The Battle of White Marsh, the British withdrew. Upon their return to Philadelphia, the Adjutant General questioned Lydia about the night of December 2.

According to the American Quarterly Review, he concluded, “I know you were asleep, for I knocked at your chamber door three times before you heard me. I am entirely at a loss to imagine who gave General Washington information of our intended attack, unless the walls of the house could speak. When we arrived near White Marsh, we found all their cannon mounted, and the troops prepared to receive us; and we have marched back like a parcel of fools.”

The Tavern Keeper

“In the original 13 colonies, women were generally considered to be domestic, innocent, and well-meaning,” wrote tour guide Dorothy Stanaitis in an essay for the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging. “Their intellect was routinely underestimated, [making] it easy for them to become experts in collecting secret information.”

We don’t know if Molly Rinker was an expert, but she was considered “frail and incompetent,” according to Stanaitis. “Old Mom,” as she was known, ran a tavern in Germantown. Serving drinks to British soldiers in the evening, she regularly overheard information that was useful to the patriots, taking “meticulous and copious notes.”

Legend has it that during the day she would sit atop an outcropping of rock in Wissahickon Valley Park, knitting socks for Continental Army troops and occasionally dropping “balls of yarn containing messages about British activities onto the ground below,” according to Barbara McCabe, former newsletter editor for Friends of the Wissahickon. “Watching from across the creek, the Green Boys of Roxborough, an irregular band of supporters of American independence, would retrieve the messages and relay them to General Washington in Valley Forge.”

In 1883, John Welsh, a former Fairmount Park Commissioner, had a statue in the likeness of William Penn placed atop Rinker’s Rock. Inscribed “TOLERANCE,” the statue and rock are visible from an offshoot of the Orange Trail and from a trail off Park Line Drive in Mount Airy.

Allegiance to Laws, Not to a Monarch

Of course, the British had their own spies. On June 14, 1776, the Continental Congress established the Committee on Spies and directed it to revise the rules and articles of war. 10 days later, Congress resolved that all persons living in, visiting, or passing through “any of the United Colonies, and deriving protection from the laws of the same, owe allegiance to the said laws.” Therefore, anyone “who shall levy war against any of the said colonies, or be adherent to the king of Great Britain, or other… enemies of the said colonies… giving to him or them aid and comfort, are guilty of treason against such colony.” Congress went on to urge the individual colonies to pass laws to specify punishment for those acts of treason. A resolution passed on August 21 established the death penalty for anyone “who shall be found lurking as spies in or about the fortifications or encampments of the armies of the United States… by sentence of a court martial, or such other punishment as such court martial shall direct.”

Ann Bates was one who got away. A school teacher from Philadelphia, she was married to a soldier in the army of General Sir Henry Clinton, who replaced Howe as Commander in Chief of the British forces. There, she met with John Craig, an agent in Clinton’s espionage network. When Clinton abandoned Philadelphia for New York in June 1778, Ann followed her husband.

Posing as a peddler, she was allowed into Washington’s camp at White Plains. “As ‘Mrs. Barnes,’ she freely traveled among the American soldiers and camp followers,” wrote Christian McBurney in the Journal of the American Revolution. “She listened in on conversations, located gun emplacements, and counted artillery pieces.”

Eventually her cover was blown, but she escaped capture. “Later, Ann was sent to escort from Philadelphia to New York City a female secret agent who had helped to turn Benedict Arnold.” Washington had appointed Arnold as Military Governor of Philadelphia, and later put him in command of West Point, but, as you know, that’s another story.

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