The 240th anniversary of the Hudson Chain: A great achievement and its rediscovery

By Sue Gardner
WARWICK — It was a complete secret. So of course most people in Warwick would have known about it. The community kept that secret and a key turning point in the Revolutionary War was achieved.
These few first months of 2018 mark the 240th anniversary of the making of the Great Chain at Sterling in our Town. There had been several previous failed attempts to block the British from sailing up the Hudson, with disastrous results. Kingston – the temporary home of the rebel government – had been nearly burned to the ground.
Here’s how one of the greatest engineering feats in American history went down:
In January, Warwick’s Col. John Hathorn and three others were commissioned to brave the bitter cold to survey areas of the Hudson and find a place where an obstruction would work, and where forts could guard it. They returned their report to the New York Provincial Congress on January 14, 1778, recommending that it should go across at West Point.
Everyone got busy. The contract for the chain was given to Townsend, Noble & Co., and specified that it would be made of Sterling iron - a better quality ore. Local men and Continental Army specialists under the direction of forge owner Peter Townsend and engineer Thomas Machin worked furiously to mine, smelt, and forge massive amounts of iron to create a gigantic chain that would stretch across the river. Hathorn’s militia kept vigilant watch the whole time, keeping Loyalists and spies away.
80 tons, 500 yards longBy March and April, huge iron links – each about 24 inches long and weighing about 114 pounds – were transported 10 at a time on ox sleds from Sterling to the Brewster forge near the river for assembly. The completed chain was around 500 yards long and weighed about 80 tons. Log sections fashioned into rafts were used as floats.
The chain was stretched across the Hudson on April 30. That’s right, April 30. One of the most stunning examples in American history of what our people could achieve working together toward a goal. The Sterling chain, made of superior iron and sited correctly, held.
As a matter of fact, the British didn’t even try it.
Lost (and found) forgeAstoundingly, hundreds of years later, we’d lost track of the nationally significant site where the actual forge was. Typical. We knew where the furnace where the iron was smelted was, and we knew that the forge had been tucked away to avoid British eyes. But no one knew its exact location. This bothered Doc Bayne, who was working at Sterling Forest State Park as the acting environmental educator and park ranger.
He looked at the clues. He walked, and walked, and looked, and thought. He researched every document that could be found and put more clues together. He decided on a new tactic. He started at park headquarters and walked in a straight line out to the park perimeter. He adjusted his course a few degrees and did that again. And again, and again, and again. One day he came upon a small stream, that had a few odd things in it. Things that had miraculously persisted over 200 years. The famous forge was found. It was indeed tucked away in a little valley between hills, away from hostile eyes.
Once again, however, its location was a big secret. And had to stay that way for a while. Because this sensitive, nationally significant archaeological site must be protected from looters until the artifacts could be carefully discovered, cataloged, and rescued.
Doc kept that secret, as did the patriots of the Revolution. The slow process of discovery went forward under the authority of the New York State Historic Preservation Office. Now, finally, years later, he can talk about it. Doc publicly lectures about the site and its importance and discovery and leads hikes into the mountains, so we can all better understand and appreciate “The Chain That Saved the Revolution”.
Well done, patriots of Warwick.
Well done, Doc Bayne.
For more information about the chain and the those who made it, visit the Great Chain resource guide hosted by Albert Wisner Public Library: http://guides.rcls.org/chain

Sue Gardner is the Town of Warwick Deputy Historian.