It eventually constructed such obstacles across the river at northern Manhattan, between forts Washington and Lee in 1776; at the newly constructed Fort Montgomery on the West Bank on Popolopen Creek in 1776–1777 south of West Point; a partially completed one at Pollepel Island in 1776–1777 north of West Point; and the Great Chain (1778–1782) at West Point.
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Peter Townsend was paid a great sum of money from the Continental Congress for manufacturing the chain.
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As part of the barriers erected across the river, the Army constructed a chevaux-de-frise, an array of logs sunk underwater, between Fort Washington on the island of Manhattan, and Fort Lee across the river in New Jersey.
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The greater system of fortifications at West Point, of which the chain was part, was designed and built by the Polish engineer Tadeusz Kościuszko.
Machin was the son of Thomas Machin Jr., a Brigadier General of the militia and veteran of the War of 1812; and grandson of Captain Thomas Machin the architect of the great West Point Chain which was emplaced in 1778 to prevent the British from ascending the Hudson River.
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He was a 19th-century industrialist, active in his family's iron business which was a branch of the Stirling Iron Works, the maker of the Hudson River Chain that prevented the British Royal Navy from sailing up the Hudson River during the American Revolutionary War.
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It could be said that iron ran in the family's blood since Townsend's great uncle, Peter Townsend, established and ran the Stirling Iron Works which forged the great Hudson River Chain which was strung across the Hudson River just south of the important American base at West Point, New York.
His father was an industrialist, having carried on the business of the Stirling Iron Works which forged the Hudson River Chain that prevented the British Royal Navy from sailing up the Hudson River during the American Revolution.