Revolutionary War Spy House Turned Historic Museum
30 West Main Street, Oyster Bay, NY 11771
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Modest admission for the museum; children's rates available. Check venue website for current pricing.
Access
Limited Access
Paved walkway with historic-house thresholds and steep staircases inside
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1738 · Revolutionary War Site · Culper Spy Ring · Townsend Family Home · Accredited Historic House Museum
Samuel Townsend purchased the four-room saltbox that became Raynham Hall on May 6, 1738, paying Thomas Weedon seventy pounds for the property. Between 1738 and 1740 Townsend enlarged the house to eight rooms and a story and a half. The Townsends were among the founding families of Oyster Bay and remained Patriot sympathizers even though roughly half of the village's residents were Loyalists.
During the British occupation of Long Island, the house was used to quarter officers of the Queen's Rangers, including their commander Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe and the British adjutant general Major John Andre. Robert Townsend, Samuel's son, operated in New York City as Culper Junior, a key agent in George Washington's Culper Spy Ring. Family tradition holds that Sally Townsend overheard conversations in the house that informed Washington's network about Andre's negotiations with Benedict Arnold. Andre was captured behind American lines in September 1780 and hanged as a spy on October 2, 1780.
In 1851 Solomon Townsend remodeled the home in the Victorian taste, adding decorated wallpaper, ornate furnishings, a central tower with a skylight, and an entire new wing. He renamed the property Raynham Hall after a Townsend ancestral estate in Norfolk, England.
By 1941 the family could no longer maintain the house and transferred the deed to the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution; ownership passed to the Town of Oyster Bay shortly afterward. With support from the Friends of Raynham Hall, Inc., the property opened as a public museum in 1953. It received American Alliance of Museums accreditation in 1991 and remains the only accredited historic house museum on Long Island.
Sources
Reports of unusual phenomena at Raynham Hall trace to the early 1900s. The most frequently retold sighting involves a uniformed figure on horseback seen outside an upstairs window, identified in local tradition with Major John Andre, who quartered in the house before his capture and execution in 1780.
Sally Townsend's former bedchamber has been the subject of repeated staff and visitor reports of pronounced cold. Former curators have described wearing wool sweaters in that room during summer months. Paranormal investigators visiting the site have characterized the room's atmosphere as unwelcoming, though no controlled documentation has been published.
A recurring figure described as a man in a dark wool coat with brass buttons has been reported by museum volunteers; he is associated in local tradition with Michael Conlin, an Irish-born servant employed at the house in the 1860s. Witnesses describe him appearing near the garden door and beside the main staircase, and on at least one reported occasion materializing partially before resolving into a full-figure apparition.
The upstairs former servants' quarters generate frequent reports of moving shadows when the building is empty, and a faint floral scent that visitors most often identify as roses. The kitchen and the foyer below produce a different signature: warm baking smells, variously described as cinnamon, apple pie, or cinnamon rolls, along with the suggestion of pipe tobacco. A former museum director reported sensing at least five distinct presences in the house, with the strongest concentration in Sally Townsend's room.
The house has been featured in regional ghost-walk programming and is regularly listed among Long Island's notable paranormal sites.
Notable Entities
Tour the Townsend family home that operated as a forward British headquarters during the Revolutionary War. Galleries cover the Culper Spy Ring, Sally Townsend's overheard intelligence on the Benedict Arnold plot, and the 1851 Victorian wing added by Solomon Townsend. Period rooms include the upstairs chamber where staff and visitors have reported persistent cold even in summer.
The museum hosts a seasonal Halloween ghost walk through historic Oyster Bay that ends at Raynham Hall, weaving documented Revolutionary War history with the building's reported phenomena. Dates and ticketing vary year to year.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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