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Sarah "Sally" Townsend was a member of George Washington's Culper Ring, a spy ring founded in the summer of 1778. Sarah lived in Oyster Bay and passed information to her brother, Robert Townsend, a main member of the ring. She died in December 1842.

Courtship
British officers were stationed at the Townsend house, one of whom was John Graves Simcoe, who courted Sarah for a time and declared his love for her in 1779 in America's first known valentine. In it he asks her to choose him as her valentine and and he writes, "Thou know'st what powerful magick lies Within the round of Sarah's eyes".

Sarah was about 16 at the time of this proposal, did not choose Simcoe to be her valentine, likely due to greatly differing political sentiments. The theme of the lengthy valentine revolves around the difficulty of loving an enemy. Sarah was never married, and it is said that the valentine was found among her possessions after her death