Rivington Street

The next time you're on the Lower East Side and you go by or walk down this street, you can take comfort in the knowledge that you know for whom this street is named. James Rivington was one of the major Revolutionary-era publishers in New York, as well as a bookseller. His paper, The Royal Gazette, was vehemently anti-independence and pro-Tory, at least on the surface. His print press building was ruined in 1775 by a mob of independence advocates, but he rebuilt and kept on churning out his paper when the British occupied New York City from 1777 on. His publication was filled with contempt and invective for the cause of American independence. Post 1783, the first year of genuine independence, his paper, with its pro-Tory views, ceased to exist for lack of circulation. Rivington spent the rest of his days living at subsistence level. What wasn't known during the time that Rivington was publishing the Gazette was that Rivington was secretly using his status as an ardent Tory to glean important information about the manoeuvres of the British army and, specifically, their navy. He would communicate this information within the bookcovers of books he sold to undercover patriots. After the war, Washington, in New York for a farewell party his officers held for him at Faunces Tavern, paid Rivington a visit. Adjourning to a back room of Rivington's bookseller business, Washington secretly rewarded Rivington with several gold pieces. Rivington had stolen the British naval fleet's signal book and successfully communicated it to the Americans; this broken code contributed in no small part to the American victory at Y0rktown

Rivington died in 1802, his great role in helping the cause of independence unknown to the larger masses.