When Bill Bleyer visited fourth graders at Bayville Intermediate School to discuss the Culper Spy Ring, he expected to give students a condensed lesson on Revolutionary War espionage.
Instead, he found himself fielding sharp historical questions from students already immersed in the history of the American Revolution and Long Island’s role in it.
“It was just really cool,” Bleyer said. “When I was talking to the students before everything started. I said, ‘Would you want to be historians?’ And they got all excited and said, ‘Yeah, that would be fun.’ It was like talking to my earlier self.”
Bleyer, a longtime journalist and local historian from Bayville, was invited to speak by fourth grade teacher Evelyn Mason after she saw an advertisement for one of his public lectures on the Culper Spy Ring at the Bayville Free Library.
“I was going to the library, as I frequently do, and I saw an advertisement for programs Bill was doing on the Culper Spy Ring, and coincidentally, we were just learning about the Culper Spy Ring in school like that week,” Mason said. “So I asked the library to hook us up, and he came, and he was very informative.”
The presentation was timed ahead of the students’ field trip to Raynham Hall Museum, the former home of Culper Spy Ring member Robert Townsend. Mason brought both fourth grade classes together in the school auditorium for the lecture.
Bleyer said he adapted his usual hourlong presentation into a brief overview geared toward elementary school students.
“I showed my full PowerPoint slide presentation, but I crunched my normal hour plus lecture down to about 15 minutes, summarized how spy rings worked, and then took about another 15 minutes or so for questions,” he said. “Through the whole thing, they just had so much energy.”
Though the presentation was shorter and less technical than his lectures for adult audiences, Bleyer said he did not simplify the material too heavily.
“I didn’t dumb it down for them, because kids these days are pretty bright,” he said. “You can tell with the questions they were asking about how the invisible ink messages work are around the same kind of questions you would get from an adult audience.”
Students said they were especially interested in learning how some popular stories about Revolutionary War figures may not be historically accurate.
Student Elizabeth Kelly said one of the surprises involved the reported last words of Nathan Hale. They also learned that the famous story about spy ring member Anna Strong using laundry on a clothesline to communicate secret messages may not be fully accurate.
“We were like ‘those weren’t his last words?” student Chase Hannon said. “And we were like ‘Ms. Mason how dare you!’”
The classmates said they had already become interested in Revolutionary War history through classroom projects, books and visits to historical sites.
Elizabeth said she had read multiple books about the war, including historical fiction and nonfiction works. Classmate Matthew DelGuidice added that learning local history changed how he viewed his hometown.
“Now I know that well, our town has a lot of history and a lot of back stories,” Matthew said. “The Culper Spy Ring like helped us move on through and like, it’s like, where we are now.”
Javieraa Herve-Navarrete said the presentation helped students better understand how the spy ring operated.
“I liked when he was explaining about the Culper Spy Ring, Javiera said, “and what the different roles of the different people that were in the spy ring.”
Mason said bringing guest speakers into the classroom helps make history more tangible for students.
“There’s a difference between reading about it,” she said, “and actually meeting somebody who can speak to you and who has real research at the tip of his to her fingers, and can make it come alive.”
She added that learning about events that took place close to home especially resonated with students.
For Bleyer, the experience also showed the impact of localizing national history for the students.
“It’s really great,” he said, “that they’ve dialed down on this specific local history.”
