Location: Brick Academy, 15 W. Oak St., Basking Ridge.

Snow Date: February 29

Intelligence gathering, secret agents and misinformation – not the first things that come to mind when we think of the American Revolution.  However, as we will learn, some of the most interesting and essential characters of the Revolution were the spies, including one from right here in the Somerset Hills!  These agents provided George Washington with invaluable intelligence.

Our guide through this shadowy world of 18^th-century espionage will be Damien Cregeau, a nationally recognized scholar of the American Revolution. 

Please join us as we discover many exciting and vital operations of the American Revolution and the patriots who carried them out.  Light refreshments will be served.

Fee:  $10 members / $15 non-members.  Program fee to be collected at the door upon arrival.

Our Speaker

Damien Cregeau earned his bachelor’s degree in history from Hillsdale College in Michigan and his master’s degree in military history from Colorado State University.  He is an independent historian and a scholar of the American Revolutionary era specializing in espionage.  He has spoken on the Culper Ring and spies in the American Revolution since 2006.  He has spoken at the FBI’s New York Office, the Fraunces Tavern Museum in New York City, the Association of Former Intelligence Officers at MIT, and from Boston down to the Army-Navy Club in Washington, D.C.  He hosted a Revolutionary War spy conference in Litchfield, Connecticut (where Benjamin Tallmadge later lived and is buried) in the fall of 2019 to help the town celebrate its 300th anniversary.  His talk at the Dey Mansion in New Jersey on the military accomplishments of Major General Alexander Hamilton is featured on C-SPAN.

His most fascinating historical spy project was to be hired a year ago by a liquor company owner to research and write about the legendary accomplishments of Hercules Mulligan of New York. Hercules was a mentor and friend to the young Alexander Hamilton and may have saved Washington’s life not once but twice. 

Damien’s fascinating feature on the creation and use of a special invisible ink devised by Sir John Jay was published in the fall of 2023 by Military History Quarterly, the most prestigious military history magazine in North America.  He has been published ten times with the Journal of the American Revolution, including a feature on ten graves of patriot spies of the American Revolution.