Benjamin Tallmadge  |
Benjamin Tallmadge was born in 1754 on Long Island, New York. He was a colonel in the army and a friend of George Washington. He was the first Secret Service agent in the Continental Army. He was responsible for capturing a spy named Major Andre. Major Andre was a friend of Benedict Arnold, the most famous traitor in American history. Tallmadge passed through Litchfield during the Revolutionary War. He liked the town so much that he decided to move here in 1783. Tallmadge added two side porches with very tall columns onto his house to copy George Washington's Mount Vernon home. Tallmadge was the first postmaster in Litchfield. He later became the president of Phoenix Bank which is now the First National Bank of Litchfield. He and his partners, Julius Deming and Oliver Wolcott, Jr., owned a ship called the “Trident.” They imported goods from all over the world to sell in his store called “B. Tallmadge & Co.” He died in 1835 and is buried in the East Burying Ground in Litchfield. One of his descendants, Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, built the Litchfield History Museum building in 1900 as the town's first public library.
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