Saturday I’ll be at the downtown Fairfield University Bookstore to present about Fairfield’s Revolutionary past. Along with Rita Papazian — two for the price of free! — I’ll be discussing Samuel Smedley, Caleb Brewster, and the 1779 burning of Fairfield. The talk runs from 1-3pm on the second floor.
And if you’re a fan of Caleb Brewster, the first episode of Turn debuts this Sunday night on AMC. The five-part series dramatizes the events of the Culper spy ring, the famous Patriot intelligence network that developed in New York and Long Island after the city’s fall to British troops and Loyalists.
Brewster, a native of Setauket before decamping across the Sound to Fairfield, was a crucial link in the ring, ferrying information about British goings-on from Long Island to Connecticut and thence to General Washington. And as if he wasn’t enough of a bad-ass already, Brewster was also handy in a fight. The Journal of the American Revolution has seen early episodes and given it eight Huzzahs.