A reader of an earlier Blog noted a
reference to one of his and Nedra’s ancestors, Andrew Babcock (1731-1801) who
came from England in 1773 with his brother Edward. They were anchor makers and blacksmiths. Andrew’s brother died a year after arriving, but
Andrew became involved in 1778 with the making of “the Great Chain” as it is
now called, across the Hudson River near West Point. I learned as I read more of this project that
the engineer for this fortification of West Point was Thaddeus Kosciuszko, the
famous Polish patriot and Enlightenment scholar who was in France in 1776 and
who came to America to offer his services to General Washington. Kosciusko’s name I recognized from my high
school history course, but I did not know he was an engineer, architect,
artist, and musician. He also was a foe
of slavery and left his estate to Thomas Jefferson to use the money to free
Jefferson’s slaves, which Jefferson did not do because it would have created
problems for his fellow plantation owners and family. The case eventually was settled fifty years
later by the US Supreme Court with Kosciuszko’s descendants being awarded what
was left of the estate. Unfortunately,
it wasn’t much, because the trustees embezzled the money over the half century of
litigation. Kosciusko was much appreciated
by George Washington because his engineering skills were used for several
fortifications and military engineering projects that prevented the British
from following up on their victories or achieving their conquests.
Andrew
Babcock lived and worked near the northern reaches of Manhattan in what was then part of Bergen County, New
Jersey and now part of Orange County in
New York. He helped make the links of
the chain at the Noble and Townsend Forge located there. Each link was 18 inches in thickness and two
feet in length and weighed 114 pounds. The links (in batches of 4) were placed
on rafts of logs and towed to West Point.
The Great Chain was 1800 feet in length and the blacksmiths joined them together. The barrier was set up to prevent the
British ships from attacking Albany and joining British forces in Canada. That would have cut the US in half and
isolated New England from the other colonies.
General Benedict Arnold devised a plan to take over the forts at West Point,
release the chain and bring about a defeat of Washington’s army. It was thwarted when a spy (Major Andre) was
captured and Arnold was tipped off and managed to escape and sail back to
England.
After the War Andrew Babcock married Susan White and they
had four children, Edward E. Babcock, Rachel Babcock, Sarah J Babcock, and
James Babcock. Nedra is descended on her
mother’s side from Edward Babcock the great great grandfather of Nedra’s mother,
Florence (nee Dawald) Miller. On her
father’s side Sarah Babcock is the great great grandmother of Harold Miller,
Nedra’s father. Susan White Babcock was
widowed in 1801 and cheated of her land in Greene County, Pennsylvania. She used a flat boat and with her four
children and belongings followed the rivers and canals to settle near Cincinnati. The Babcocks made their way into Indiana in
the 1830s, especially in Fulton County, Indiana. There
were other Babcocks who came to North America several generations earlier in
the 1600s. Some of those Babcocks were loyalists and supported the British
during the American Revolution and many of those moved to Canada, particularly in
the Brockville, Canada, region, not far from where Nedra and I lived when I was
teaching at Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario. The memories of Ontario residents were set in
a bronze marker by the St Lawrence seaway and I recall reading “These
fortifications were emplaced by order of her Majesty, Queen Victoria, as
protection against American aggression.
I didn’t learn that in my high school history class! After the Revolutionary War thirteen of the
links were saved to form a monument at
the West Point Academy and the rest of the Great Chain was melted down and sold
to recoup some of the costs of the war.
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