Cubs pitcher Ben Brown grew up in Setauket, New York—an area tied to the Culper Spy Ring—and he believes George Washington may have visited his childhood home after the Revolution.
ST. LOUIS — Ben Brown is pitching for the Cubs, but on nights when the game slows down in his mind, he’s thinking about footsteps from another era.
He doesn’t claim proof that George Washington ever stood in his childhood home on Long Island. Still, Brown thinks it’s “pretty good chance” Washington set foot there. He points to a specific reason: in 1790—“the year after Washington was elected our first president”—the general visited Setauket and other north shore hamlets to thank residents for risking their lives during the Revolution. Brown grew up in Setauket, New York, in a home built in the 1750s.
“George Washington may or may not have walked through our door one day,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Washington’s connection to the town runs through the Culper Ring. the spy network that later became known as America’s first spy ring. Brown says Washington came to honor the citizens who lived among those involved—people who. in the story that shaped Setauket’s identity. used the quiet routines of daily life to move information.
Brown describes the house he grew up in with the kind of detail you only get from a person who lived there: his father. Jody. took on much of the work himself—fixing up the house—while his mother. JoAnne Wilson-Brown. made it “special.” He remembers a red barn on the property and “four or five fireplaces. ” not in use. but part of the home’s character. There were also small rooms, creaky floors, and “a bunch of little outhouses.”.
“It was a really cool house,” Brown said. “There’s so many little characteristics to the house.”
Setauket is small. In 2020, it was divided into two census designated places: East Setauket, where Brown grew up, and another CDP. As of 2020, the population of the hamlet was 3,986. In that tight footprint. three big-league pitchers grew up and later made it to the majors: Steven Matz of the Rays. Anthony Kay of the White Sox. and Brown. all of them graduating from Ward Melville High School.
But before the big-league dreams. Brown’s wife. Maggie. was the one who turned their attention to the town’s darker past. Someone told her about “Turn: Washington’s Spies. ” a series that originally aired on the AMC network and ran for four seasons. recounting the tale of the spies from Setauket. Brown said Maggie became a watcher—an approach he calls “a novel way to learn about your husband’s hometown.”.
One of the principal spies, as the story goes, was Caleb Brewster. Brewster was an officer of the Continental army. grew up in Setauket. was an expert seaman. and knew the Long Island Sound well. In town, he had connections, including Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge—later known as Washington’s chief intelligence officer. Brewster was recruited by Tallmadge to spy on the British. who had used New York City as a base of operations.
Couriers traveled back and forth from New York, 55 miles away, supplying Washington vital information about troop movements. The operation leaned on coded messages: they used coded messages in newspapers. an invisible ink called a “sympathetic strain” to write between the lines of letters that looked ordinary. and a code book that assigned numbers to the principals. In Brown’s telling, the numbers were precise—Washington was 711, and Caleb Brewster was 725.
The network also used small signals that would have looked harmless to anyone outside the circle. Brown said Anna Strong, a woman in town, was said to have hung a black petticoat on a clothesline to alert the network that Brewster was in town.
Even the local landmarks fit the spy narrative. Caleb Brewster’s cousin, Joseph, ran the Brewster House—a tavern and general store. In Brown’s account, British soldiers were customers there. The Brewster House still stands, right down the road from where Brown grew up.
Brown’s schedule has him thinking about history in real time, too. He is scheduled to start here Saturday night against the Cardinals.
And even with all the talk of espionage, Brown insists he never imagined himself as anything like a spy. He remembers being a “crazy 10-year-old,” telling his teachers he was going to play in the big leagues.
“Turn: Washington’s Spies” offered the story of Setauket as a place where secrecy lived in plain sight. For Brown, that story doesn’t replace the one he’s lived—baseballs, training, and the push toward a starting role—but it does add something extra when he looks at the neighborhood that shaped him.
For him, the past isn’t distant. It’s in the creak of the floors, the nearby road named for Brewster, and a question he can’t quite shake: whether Washington truly did come by, long before the stadium lights ever found him.
Ben Brown Chicago Cubs Setauket Long Island George Washington Culper Ring Caleb Brewster Benjamin Tallmadge Ward Melville High School Turn: Washington’s Spies