Friday Mysteries #66

By Lynn & Da-da

Hi all, and welcome to Friday Mysteries #66, where Lynn and Da-da look at things that sometimes even we can’t fathom... and we’ve pretty much seen it all. Anyway, let’s get started. 

1. Who was “Agent 355”?

“Agent 355” was a female spy for General George Washington during The American Revolutionary War. Her real identity is a mystery. Who was she?

Lynn: First thing I get is this is some sort of simple code, with some alphabetic code mixed with numbers looking like mirrored letters, like “ESS" and these initials tie back to the person’s name. I also see her or her husband being held prisoner on a British ship. 

Da-da: Now let’s look at the backstory:

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"In November 1778, more than three years into the Revolutionary War, George Washington tasked Major Benjamin Tallmadge with forming a secret service that could spy on British operations in New York City. Tallmadge was from Setauket, a small village on Long Island, and it was there that he established his Culper Spy Ring. (Culper was a truncation of Culpeper, a Virginia county where a teenaged Washington had once worked.) 

Many of Tallmadge’s recruits were friends and acquaintances from Setauket, including his boyhood pal Abraham Woodhull, sailor Caleb Brewster, and tavern owner Austin Roe. Robert Townsend, a merchant from Oyster Bay, was another major player. Certain Culper spies took regular trips to Manhattan to glean intel, while others ferried their letters to Tallmadge in Fairfield, Connecticut, where they’d get forwarded to Washington himself.  

Most of the operatives had aliases: Tallmadge was John Bolton; Woodhull was Samuel Culper; and Townsend was Samuel Culper, Jr. Tallmadge also devised an extensive code that substituted numbers for certain words—763 in total, along with a jumbled alphabet key so the spies could spell out terms that weren’t already given a number.

On August 15, 1779, Woodhull penned a letter to Tallmadge explaining that the British were opening all the mail that entered New York and seemed to know about the Culper Ring’s courier route. And then he said this: “I intend to visit 727 before long and think by the assistance of a 355 of my acquaintance, shall be able to outwit them all.”

The portrait of Woodhull’s 355 as a scheming socialite who lent an ear to André [the British general] is one of several theories about her identity. Many scholars believe she was Anna Smith Strong, a Setauket-based friend (and cousin by marriage) of Woodhull. As the story goes, Strong sent signals to other Culper spies by hanging certain laundry on her clothesline. If Brewster saw a black petticoat, he’d know Woodhull had a message for him to take to Fairfield. To know which cove to meet at, they’d count how many white handkerchiefs she’d pinned to the line. Though historians disagree on whether this story is apocryphal, they do generally agree that Strong was likely a member of the Culper Spy Ring in some way or another.

Strong’s revolutionary history may explain how another 355 theory came to be. According to this one, 355 was Townsend’s common-law wife, who was imprisoned on the British prison ship HMS Jersey, where she died (and possibly gave birth to Townsend’s son beforehand). There’s a lack of evidence to support this tale. Strong, however, was believed to have visited the Jersey. In January 1778, British forces incarcerated her husband, Selah, for corresponding with the Patriots. According to family accounts, he ended up on the Jersey, where his wife was permitted to deliver food to him.” [Mental Floss, February, 2022]

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Da-da: So, was "Agent 355”... Anna Smith Strong? Seems to fit.

Lynn: Anna Smith Strong does feel to be Agent 355.

2. The Missing Sodder Children

At 1:00 am on Christmas morning in 1945, the Sodder family household, housing ten children, mysteriously ignited. Five children were asleep on the bottom floor, five on the top floors. (It was a three-story house.) The father managed to get five of his children out of the house and to safety, but the five on the top floor were trapped. The father tried to call the police, but couldn't get an answer, as the phone lines to the house were cut. He ran to get a ladder to get to the top floor, but the ladder that was always against the house was missing. The neighbors also failed to get ahold of the police or fire dept. and sadly, five children allegedly perished in the fire. Strangely, few remains were ever found.

So...what really happened?

Lynn: I get that there weren’t really five kids sleeping upstairs. The number of kids was exaggerated by the father for some reason. Looks like some of the boys upstairs were playing with fire, trying to light things in a “boy” kinda way, and they ended up starting this fire and freaked out…. but there was some element of this being borderline intentional… like they were trying to light stuff, and then felt the guilt come on, but really didn’t care. I’m also getting an element of parental abuse going on. Anyway, the boys went out the window and down that ladder, then used the ladder to cut the phone line, then stashed the ladder in a ditch. There was some kind of child-abuse situation going on with with father and the boys were angry, and… they perhaps had some mental problems because of the repeated abuse. Anyway, the boys then ran away.  

Da-da: So… there weren’t ten children? And basically no one died? Later researchers found some shards of vertebrae that belonged to a 16-22YO male, too old to be any of the children. No remains of the alleged burned children were ever found.

Lynn: I’m not seeing anyone die. There were either only 5 children, or only some were in on this devious act. While it seemed like they were messing around with fire, the intent of the boys was for the dad to pass in this fire.

Mystery #3. #4. and #5.   Please join me on SubscribeStar to see the remaining Friday Mysteries.  We've even included a BONUS Mystery!  Have a great Friday!  Love and light, Lynn and Da-da