Bog Bridge
Description and history
The Bog Bridge spans Pleasant Brook, a tributary of the Blackwater River, just south of where New Hampshire Route 11 crosses the river. The bridge is 53 feet (16 m) long and 13 feet (4.0 m) wide, with a span over the brook of 49 feet (15 m), and is clad in vertical planking. The asphalt shingle roof, a replacement made in 1982, is the only major modification to the bridge. The bridge rests on abutments of roughly coursed granite blocks; the eastern abutment is original, without mortar, while the western abutment was damaged in the 1938 New England hurricane and rebuilt with cement mortar. The trusses were at some time reinforced with iron bolts. The bridge is unusual among New Hampshire's covered bridges in that it lacks lateral bracing, which caused the bridge to be slightly tilted for many years.
The Town through truss bridge was built in 1887 by local carpenter Prentice C. Atwood. The bridge originally carried Bog Road across Pleasant Brook, but was reduced to foot traffic when the current alignment of New Hampshire Route 11 bypassed it in 1957. Of at least seven documented 19th or early 20th-century covered bridges in the town, it is one of only two that survives (the other is the Keniston Bridge).
See also
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Merrimack County, New Hampshire
- List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire
References
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ "NRHP nomination for Bog Bridge". National Park Service. Retrieved 2014-02-23.