Sister Rain Note:
I first learned of Major John Andre while watching the AMC TV series, “TURN: Washington’s Spies.” I was totally hooked by the story of George Washington’s Culper Spy Ring.
A few years ago, I spent a day in Tappan, New York, the location where, upon General George Washington’s orders, Major Andre was hanged as a spy, a result of his involvement with Benedict Arnold in the plot to surrender West Point to the British. (Click here for “I Spy John Andre.”) Several sites remained in the area relating to Major Andre, as well as George Washington, that I had not yet seen.
Recently I returned to Tappan, New York to visit these locations.
Click here for Part 1.
Robert Norden has owned the Old ‘76 House for forty years. After introductions were over and our reason for being there explained, Robert did not bury the lead. “Well, you’re at a great table. George Washington was sitting in this spot when a courier arrived with papers that had been on Andre when he was apprehended. Washington immediately recognized his good friend Benedict Arnold’s writing and could no longer deny what he had refused to believe: that Arnold was a traitor. He walked the few steps to the fireplace (I swear I could hear his boots) where a picture of Arnold rested on the mantle and he turned it upside down.” It remains there to this day.
I needed a minute or two or 250 years. George was right here. RIGHT HERE! In a significant moment in his personal and military life, in a historic moment for our country. Washington knew my 5x great-grandfather, Colonel Augustine Willett (click here). I felt the vapors coming on. If my husband had not asked about alternate seating . . .
Using a photo editing program
I used the picture I had taken of our table
and seated George there.
Since we had mentioned being big fans of the TV show TURN: Washington’s Spies, Robert reiterated something we had heard before, that Andre and Peggy Shipman were just friends. IYKYK.
While I ate my dinner I had been facing a blue door across the room. ”I wonder where that goes?,” I commented to Mister Rain. “Maybe a basement.” I asked Robert about it and he explained that it opened into the adjacent room, the room where Andre had been held.
Thanking Robert for a wonderful conversation, we made our way out of the Old ‘76 House, stopping frequently for my husband to point things out to me that he saw. I took one last look (such as it is for me) at “Andre’s Room.” I will always picture him first as the actor who portrayed him in TURN, JJ Feild, but then I correct the image to that of the self-portrait Andre drew right in this very room. He was 30 years-old when he died, far from his home in England.
History tells us that Andre was charming and cultured; he spoke English, French, German and Italian fluently. He was a skilled artist who drew, painted, played the flute and wrote poetry. Well-liked, people on both sides of the conflict, including Hamilton, recognized his polite manners and grace.
Although I will not go so far as to say I am a “fan” of Major John Andre, a British Officer in the Revolutionary War, I certainly have been captivated by his story. Yet it is not really a “story,” is it? it is the true tragic end of a young man’s life, a life that was over shortly after he left the building I was about to exit, marched up a hill and, by all accounts, faced his fate with dignity and honor. I do not expect my end to come by means of a public hanging, but I do hope I can leave this Earth with these same virtues as Major John Andre.
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