Raynham Hall is in Oyster Bay, New York. Home of the Townsend family, one of the founding families of Oyster Bay, on Long Island, New York, and a member of George Washington's Culper Ring of spies, the house was renamed Raynham Hall after the Townsend seat in Norfolk, England, in 1850 by a grandson of the original owner. The house is now owned by the Town of Oyster Bay and operated as a public museum by the Friends of Raynham Hall Museum, Inc. Raynham Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
SITE FEATURES
Surviving Structures
On this site...
Raynham Hall was built in 1738 as a "two by two," or two rooms on the first floor with two rooms above it, with a central chimney. After Samuel Townsend bought the house and moved in, he added onto the home four more rooms, giving the newly dubbed "Homestead" a lean-to addition in the saltbox-style structure.
HOME
EST. 1738
The outbreak of the Revolution found Samuel Townsend's sympathies on the side of the Patriots despite the fact that half of Oyster Bay's inhabitants were Loyalists. Townsend went on to become a member of the New York Provincial Congress, which voted to ratify the Declaration of Independence on July 9, 1776.
Following the Patriots' defeat at the Battle of Long Island in the autumn of 1776, the Townsend home became the headquarters for the Loyalist Queen's Rangers, led by British Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe. Samuel's older sons, Solomon, Samuel, and Robert were all engaged in trade and living away from home. Whatever their personal feelings were regarding the British, the family seemed to get along quite well with the officers on a certain level. In fact, on Valentine's Day 1778, Lt. Col. Simcoe gave Sally a Valentine, and a number of compliments were etched on panes of glass from the soldiers to two of the sisters. Even Robert Townsend who worked as a spy for General Washington during the Revolution, remarked when Major Andre died that he had "never felt more sensibly for the death of a person.
HISTORIC PEOPLE
Robert Townsend
Spy
John Graves Simcoe
Captain