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PHILIPSTOWN POTPOURRI
"The Enemy Restrained" (Part 2 of 4 )
With perhaps, or maybe not, a hint of ceremony, the snaky linkage was extended from its West Point anchorage to that on Constitution Island, on the last day of April, 1778.
Each winter for the next four years this hardy string of iron would be ordered removed from the river; that damage to the chain not be a consequence from ice floe pressure; that all water logged timbers be replaced; and that attention be given any repairs.
On the west shore the chain was drawn from the river by means of a substantial "windlass", a hoisting and/or hauling mechanism. To be seen were bobbing boats of soldiers arranged along the length of the linkage, guiding it straightforwardly as the cranking, squeaky windlass exerted all the measure of its being in pulling the dead weighted chain to dry land. Never again would any British flotilla, or individual ship, challenge the great chain from the moment of its placement 'til wars end.
Benedict Arnold, between early August and late September, 1780, declared to himself a readiness to betray the West Point works over to the British.
One sinister ingredient in such a covertly designed plot was Arnolds' having schemed to deliberately allow the chains'deterioration, increasing immensely the fortunes of the British in navigating more freely up the river. (Arnold had been given command of West Point by General Washington, probably by mid or late July, 1780.)
Perilously open to ruin would the linkage have become had Arnold's treachery not been discovered during the last fateful week of that 1780 September. The stalwart chain had been spared to go on existing until early winter of 1782, when it was removed from the Hudson for the final time, annulling the bond itself had created between West Point and Constitution Island.
Out of Cape Cod's Nantucket Island, in April, 1783, the schooner "Cottle", laden with rum, fish oil and a full hold of other assorted stores, sailed through theHighland Gorge, docking at Newburgh.
She would be the first American ship to have plied the Hudson River from its New York City mouth (unprohibited by any river obstructions) since the British took the city back in 1776.
Much of the concluding history of the "great chain" remains murky and speculative. Lore has it that said chain was left at some kind of depository near West Point's shoreline following its permanent removal from the river.
Not until around 1830 was the linkage rescued, parts of it made into bar iron at the West Point foundry works, just across the river at Cold Spring. At some point prior to the American Civil War, components of the original chain, including thirteen links, were placed on permanent display (to this day) at West Point's "Trophy Point".
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