Brewster was born in
Setauket, New York
,
a hamlet of
Brookhaven
.
After the Revolutionary War, he was a blacksmith, an officer in the
United States Revenue Cutter Service
for 20 years, and a farmer. He was a descendant of Francis Brewster II, barber-surgeon of Castle Bristol, who died, presumably, on the Phantom Ship in 1646-1647 and was the son of Francis Brewster I of Wrentham Hall in Suffolk, yeoman, who died 1632 in Bristol, England.
Major
Benjamin Tallmadge
convinced
General George Washington
on August 25, 1778, that
Abraham Woodhull
of Setauket, Long Island, would make a good agent to gather intelligence in New York City, the British Army's headquarters and base of operations during the American Revolutionary War.
Brewster served as a courier in what became the
Culper spy ring
, carrying messages between Woodhull and Tallmadge,
and he ran regular trips in
whaleboats
across the Sound on a variety of smuggling and military missions. Woodhull and
Robert Townsend
were the main agents in the Ring, alias "Samuel Culper, Sr." and "Samuel Culper, Jr." respectively.
Brewster also participated in military actions as a
Continental Army
officer serving under Tallmadge.
Anna Strong
's role in the Ring was to signal Brewster that a message was ready, according to widely accepted local and family tradition. She did this by hanging a black petticoat on her clothesline at Strong Point in Setauket, which Brewster could see from a boat in the Sound and Woodhull could see from his nearby farm.
She would add a number of handkerchiefs for one of six coves where Brewster would bring his boat and Woodhull would meet him.
[8]
In February 1778, Brewster sent a message of his own through the Culper channel that described flat-bottomed boats being built in New York that could be used to ferry troops, and
Loyalist
privateers being outfitted.
On another trip, he was waiting for Woodhull in Anna Strong's back garden
when he surprised a passing British lieutenant. Brewster pulled him off his horse and had the opportunity to capture or kill him,
but he refrained from doing either in order to avoid drawing suspicion on Anna as a member of the Ring, and instead pretended that he and his men were thieves.
Brewster married Anne Lewis of
Fairfield, Connecticut
, after the war and moved to Fairfield with her,
where he set up a blacksmith business.
The couple had eight surviving children.
In 1793, he joined the
United States Revenue Cutter Service
, predecessor of the
United States Coast Guard
.
He took three years off from the service because he disagreed with policies of President
John Adams
, and he commanded the revenue cutter
USRC
Active
(1812)
from 1812 to 1816.
He retired to his farm in
Black Rock, Connecticut
.
Brewster died February 13, 1827, aged 79, and is buried in Fairfield Cemetery.
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March 17,
2013
.
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ISBN
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