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William WadeNew Windsor lies at the confluence of Chamber's creek with the Hudson, two miles south of Newburgh. Here, in a mansion of an humble Dutch style of architecture, Washington had his head-quarters; but the place is chiefly remarkable as the native town of De Witt Clinton, " a great man, an elegant and profound scholar, and a practical citizen-a man of letters and the world, and a character of active worth to the present generation, and of solid and permanent advantage to posterity.''
The links of the first great chain was forged in Robert Erskine's Ringwood Furnace , carried by wagons and assembled in Brewster's Forge near New Windsor onthe Hudson River. From there the chain was floated on rafts to Fort Montgomery.