Bayport Heritage Monthly Meeting:

George Washington’s Long Island Spy Ring

Fact or Fiction:
A presentation by Elizabeth Kahn Kaplan on May 15, 2016
at the Bayport-Blue Point Public Library

Perhaps you’ve wondered how much of the series, Turn, on the AMC television channel is factual and how much is pure fiction. It tells the story of the Culper Spy Ring that provided information to George Washington during the American Revolution. The third season of the historical drama, filled with military action, suspense, sex, and violence, began in April, leaving many to wonder whether the true and exciting story of America’s first successful spy ring was portrayed accurately. Can large chunks of the television program be attributed to a screenwriter’s inventive mind?

On Sunday, May 15th at 2:00 PM, historian and writer Elizabeth Kahn Kaplan will answer that question at the a program sponsored by the Bayport Heritage Association at the Bayport-Blue Point Public Library. Her PowerPoint-illustrated presentation, Fact or Fiction: George Washington’s Long Island Spy Ring relates how the Culper Ring was formed at the urging of Washington, who needed information about British troop movements in New York. He and his army had fled Manhattan after the Continental Army’s disastrous loss at the Battle of Long Island, in Brooklyn, on August 28-29, 1776.

Kaplan was the lead curator in 2010 of the Three Village Historical Society’s exhibit in Setauket, Spies: How A Group of Long Island Patriots Helped George Washington Win the Revolution. She has written curriculum guides for the New-York Historical Society and for Stony Brook University. She presented this program at George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens in Virginia, and at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

Come to the Bayport-Blue Point Public Library, 203 Blue Point Avenue in Blue Point on Sunday, May 15th at 2:00 PM for this exciting presentation. It is free and open to all. Information: (631) 363-6133.