Molly Rinker

As Medium said, “Have knitting needles, will spy.”

Many women knitted socks for the soldiers during the Revolutionary War but Molly Rinker, aka as Ma Rinker, was a special lady. Considered frail and incompetent, Molly Rinker ran the Buck Tavern in Germantown near Philadelphia and for six weeks General Washington was camped with his men at Whitemarsh, which is just a few miles away.  The British took over her tavern and every night as they drank more than they should have, she would listen to comments as they talked  amongst themselves.  Daily, she would take her knitting and go sit on top of a huge rock which overlooked a road. She wrote her useful bits of information on scraps of paper and hid them in little balls of yarn. When the time was right, she dropped the little balls of yarn down from her perch on the rock and one of Washington’s soldiers would pick it up and bring it to the General.  Molly Rinker’s information was instrumental in the 1777 Battle of Germantown.

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