She waited patiently for the men to settle, then tip-toed back downstairs, carefully stepping over the squeaky board. She clomped upstairs, making certain to step on the squeaky tread. “Remember, one of you young men needs to come wake me when you’re done, so I can blow out all the candles and lock up the house for the night.” Tuesday night, Lydia served tea to all of the officers, made sure their needs were attended to, then excused herself to go to bed. Plus, she was old, and a Quaker pacifist. She’d been a model of cooperation during the time his officers had stayed in her home. “Perhaps it would be all right if my husband and I went to bed early? Then your officers could wake me to lock up the house when your meeting is done.” “We have nowhere else to go,” she protested. Could she and her husband absent themselves on Tuesday night? Then General Howe approached her with a request - he needed to use her parlor for a meeting with his officers, since it was larger than the parlor in the house he occupied.

This went on for months, with Lydia providing modestly helpful information. Lydia Darragh’s home at 177 S 2nd St, Philadelphia.

Since the timing of the groups was known in advance, her son would meet her and take the smuggled papers back to Washington’s army. They carried bags of grain, which the Franklin Creek mill would grind into flour while they waited. She joined a group of other women who were escorted across the British lines every few weeks to run errands in the nearby town of Fredericksburg. Then she cleverly wrapped the paper in a bit of cloth and sewed it to her clothing as a button. She picked up small tidbits of knowledge, which she wrote in cramped letters on scraps of paper. Slowly, they stopped seeing her, and no longer halted their discussions in her presence. Lydia made herself invisible to the officers, always cleaning or cooking in the background. The fact that his army would not be required to pay for someone to cook and clean for his officers probably also contributed to his decision. Since the Darraghs were Quakers, known to scrupulously abstain from taking sides in the war, the General decided that he could be gracious.

If my grandmother had wheels