Taftsville Covered Bridge

by Catherine Sherman

Title

Taftsville Covered Bridge

Artist

Catherine Sherman

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

"Taftsville Covered Bridge, Windsor County, Vermont" by Catherine Sherman.

The deep red of the historic Taftsville Covered Bridge rivals the Autumn foliage on the surrounding hills of Windsor County in Vermont. It's one of the oldest bridges in the United States and is still open to traffic. I frequently had to wait to take photographs under cars and trucks had crossed the bridge.

The Taftsville Bridge is a timber-framed covered bridge spanning the Ottauquechee River in the Taftsville village of Woodstock. Built in 1836 and exhibiting no influence from patented bridge designs, it is among the oldest remaining covered bridges both in Vermont and in the United States.

The village of Taftsville was first settled more than 70 years before the construction of the modern Taftsville Bridge. Stephen Taft, after whom the village was ultimately named, arrived in the early 1790s. Within a decade of Taft's arrival, he and his brother had established a number of mills and the increasingly busy settlement required a bridge over the Ottauquechee River. The first bridge was washed away during a flood in 1807, with its replacement also falling to floodwaters in 1811. When the third bridge at the site was again washed away during an 1828 flood, a distinguished local by the name of Solomon Emmons III was contracted to build a more resilient crossing. His timber-framed, covered bridge was completed in 1836 and still stands today as the modern Taftsville Bridge.

Unlike many extant covered bridges which are based upon patented bridge designs, the Taftsville Bridge reflects an earlier "craftsman" bridge-building tradition that was possibly influenced by designs found in Switzerland. While the incorporation of laminated arches in the bridge structure is generally indicative of the well-known Burr arch-truss, which was patented in the United States in 1817, the resemblance is purely superficial. Instead, the unusual design of the Taftsville Bridge is better described as a "modified multiple kingpost truss with semi-independent arches".

Taftsville Bridge reaches a total of 189 feet (58 m) over the Ottauquechee River with two spans of 89 feet (27 m) and 100 feet (30 m) from either river bank to a central pier in the river gorge. The bridge measures 20 feet (6.1 m) in width, providing an interior roadway that is 16 feet (4.9 m).

The Taftsville Bridge is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Featured in "Philanthropic Artists for a Cause" group (10/28/2016); "The World We See" group (12/14/2016); "Premium FAA Artists" group (13/30/2016); "USA Photographers Only" group (04/17/2017); "500 And Beyond Fine Art" group (06/17/2017); "500 Views - 1 Image a Day" group (06/24/2017); ‘Covered Bridges and Historical Buildings" group (10/03/2023); "New England Photographs" group (10/06/2023); "1000 to 1999 Views" group (10/07/2023)

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October 27th, 2016

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