Note 17 — SECRET SERVICE SECRETS

It was this Austin Roe who fell from his horse and broke his leg while hurrying to keep an engagement with George Washington in 1790. The President was then touring Long Island and, probably without disclosing his reason to any one, requested the presence of those who had faithfully served him during the Revolution. Austin Roe had long occupied the Setauket homestead, later known as the Dering property, and still later owned by the Irwins who in 1936 moved the house to a new location. Roe’s brother, Captain Daniel Roe, was at the time occupying the Roe homestead at Port Jefferson, then called the Townsend house. Captain Nathaniel Roe was a cousin, not in the neighborhood at the time. Austin “bore the title of Captain,” his biographer says, but few knew what he commanded.