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.
The chain was instrumental in the discovery of Benedict Arnold, when Peter Townsend's cousin, Sally Townsend, whose brother Robert was a member of Gen George Washington's Culper Ring of spies, allegedly intercepted information at the family home in Oyster Bay, Long Island which occupied by British officers.
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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.