Bedell Covered Bridge
The site is now part of the 74-acre (30 ha) Bedell Bridge State Park in Haverhill, New Hampshire.
History
There have been five bridges on this site. The first was built in 1805 and heavily damaged in 1823. Quickly rebuilt that year, it was washed away in 1841. A third bridge was carried away by a spring flood in 1862. The fourth bridge was destroyed in a storm on July 4, 1866, and replaced the same year. This fifth bridge was in service for 92 years, until it was closed to traffic in 1958. It was scheduled for demolition in 1973 due to heavy damage that year.
A "Save the Bedell Bridge Committee" raised $250,000 to rebuild the bridge, which was completed by 1978, and included the establishment of the associated Bedell Bridge State Park in the area of the eastern abutment. The bridge was rededicated on July 22, 1979, only to be blown away again by a windstorm on September 14, 1979. The state park, as well as the abutments and a pier in the river, are all that remain.
When first built, the bridge was in private ownership, and a toll was charged to cross it. In 1916, the towns of Newbury and Haverhill purchased the bridge and eliminated the toll. Ownership of the bridge was transferred to the state of New Hampshire in 1967.
Image gallery
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Site of the bridge, with a pier standing alone in the river
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The pier complete with crowning tree.
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The memorial marker
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People on the eastern abutment, giving a sense of scale
See also
- List of crossings of the Connecticut River
- List of New Hampshire covered bridges
- List of Vermont covered bridges
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Grafton County, New Hampshire
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Orange County, Vermont
- List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire
- List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont
Notes
References
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ "Wells River and Woodsville site". Archived from the original on 2007-08-21. Retrieved 2007-09-03.
- ^ "NRHP nomination for Bedell Covered Bridge". National Park Service. 1975. Retrieved 2014-03-18.
- Delany, Edmund Thomas (1983). The Connecticut River: New England's Historic Waterway. The Globe Pequot Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-0-87106-980-1.