After the war ended, Jonathan still
acted as commander of the Cornish militia, conducting monthly musters
to make sure the town would be adequately and competently defended in
case of attack. For the most part, the Indians had been driven out
along with the British, and people breathed easier and got down to
the business of raising their families and making a living. For no
one was that more true than Jonathan and Mary Chase, who added three
children to their already considerable brood. Lebbeus was born in
1779, Pamelia in 1780 and Gratia in '82, for a total of 9 children.
By the time Gratia was born, her sister Prudence was married and had
a one year old of her own. Jonathan and Sarah had a grandchild who
was a year older than their youngest daughter.
In 1784, Jonathan established a ferry
at the present site of the Cornish Covered Bridge. The farmers in
Vermont needed a way to get both produce and livestock across the
river and to the markets in Boston. New England livestock was sold on
the hoof in Boston markets, and it was also slaughtered, salted and
packed into barrels as salt beef and pork to be shipped to the
Caribbean as part of the Triangular Trade.
He had operated the ferry successfully
and profitably for10 years, when he applied to the state of New
Hampshire in 1795 for a permit to build a bridge. The original act
granted him the privilege of being exclusive proprietor of a toll
bridge built near the location of the ferry in Cornish, for thirty
years. The act set the amounts of tolls, and stated that these
amounts could be adjusted, but never for more than 12% of the annual
cost of building, repairing and maintaining the bridge. I find it
interesting that the state established a limit on the profit of a
private enterprise in 1795, a concept that today is considered
controversial. A paper written by Lola Bennett, Dorattya Mackay
and Justin Spivey for the National Park Service, Department of the
Interior and National Highway Council says that over the first five
years, tolls brought in $7,171, with a net profit of $5879. It is
unclear if that takes the cost of building the bridge into account,
or if the $2000 give or take, was upkeep.
Although Jonathan was the force behind
the building of the bridge, a proprietorship actually owned, managed
and funded the construction of the bridge, which cost $20,000, which
would be $285,000 in today's economy. The bridge was built and
designed by Moody Spofford, who also built and designed churches and
bridges throughout New England. Spofford worked with Timothy Palmer,
another bridge builder of the period, and Palmer contributed to the
design of the Cornish bridge. Miller and Knapp, in their book
“American Covered Bridges” names Moody Spofford, his brother
Jacob and Timothy Palmer as members of the “Covered Bridge Hall of
Fame”. Although these famous builders went on to design and build
covered bridges, the first Cornish bridge was not covered. Some sources state that the first bridge was built by
Spofford and Boynton, bridge builders. I can't find any information on a bridge builder named Boynton, but there are several Boyntons buried near the Chases in the Cornish Cemetary, and a Boynton married a Chase daughter, so maybe one of them was the Boynton who worked on the bridge with Spofford.
The toll was paid on the Vermont side
of the river, at a toll house. Although the original bridge does not
still exist, the toll house does. This house sits on the bank of the
Connecticut River right next to the bridge on the lefthand side of
Bridge Street. Jonathan Chase owned property on both sides of the
river, in order to operate his ferry. He owned the toll house and
there are suggestions that he lived in the toll house while he ran
the ferry and later collected tolls for the bridge. He may have used
that house in the operation of both the ferry and the bridge, but it
is pretty clear that for the most part he lived in Cornish, and that
he died there in 1800. The toll house on the left side of Bridge
Street was the toll house when Jonathan was alive, but after he died
the house at 42 Bridge Street became the location of the toll house.
It seems that these two buildings were both used as toll houses. It
almost seems as if both buildings were owned by the proprietors of
the bridge, and the toll collector lived for free in one of the
houses as part of his pay. He may have gotten to choose which house
he lived in.
When Jonathan died, his heirs sold the
house at 45 Bridge Street. It was owned by a couple of people,
including the toll collector. He in turn sold it to the proprietors.
The house was owned by the proprietors until 1919, but it doesn't
appear that it was used as a toll house after the proprietors bought
it. I can see why they would want to own a couple of pieces of
property on the banks of the river next to the bridge, just to make
sure they had a couple of options for toll collection.
The early toll sign for the Cornish
Windsor Bridge can still be seen in the New Hampshire Historical
Society in Manchester. A curricle (5th item down) was a
light two wheeled vehicle drawn by two horses. The term “do”
means “ditto” which means “same as above”. A “jack” was
a jackass, a donkey. Neat cattle are either cows or oxen.
Jonathan Chase died in 1800 at age 67.
Sarah died six years later. His daughters Mary and Elisabeth and his
son David died before him, when they were in their mid-twenties. His
bridge stood until 1824, when it was washed out in a flood in
February.
The second bridge lasted for 25 years
before it, too was washed away in a flood. These floods seem to
occur regularly, and should give some thought to the doomsday
prophets who cry “global warming” every time the Connecticut
River behaves badly. The third bridge used a new architectural
design called Town Lattice Trusses. These trusses were designed by
Ithiel Town of Connecticut, and patented. Any builders who wanted to
use the Town design of trusses had to pay $1 a foot to Ithiel Town.
The National Park Service paper describes the Town lattice design.
“Town's design
consisted of two layers of overlapping planks, with each layer
arranged at an angle
to the chords, forming a lattice fastened together with wooden pins
or treenails at each
intersection.
The most significant feature of this design was that it could be
quickly erected and utilized
sawn planks instead of heavy hewn timbers. As Town explained in his
1821 pamphlet, The
lattice design actually functioned as a series of overlapping
triangles so that the load in any one
triangle affected distribution of stress in all other triangles.
Because the webs were fastened at
every intersection, no triangle could function independently.”
The Cornish Windsor Bridge that we
travel on today was built in 1866. The new construction project
caused considerable tension and controversy in both Cornish and
Windsor. Many people on both sides of the river strongly agitated
for a free bridge, even going so far as to threaten to burn a new one
down if it came with a toll. An editorial in the Vermont Journal is
quoted in the National Park Service Paper.
“We hear many
expressions of regret on the part of our New Hampshire friends,
whose
business connections with Windsor are seriously interrupted in
consequence
of the loss of the Cornish Bridge. We hear many sober
complainings
from our neighbors in Windsor, on account of the loss of business
from
the same cause. We also hear frequent suggestions from citizens from
both
sides
of the river in relation to the possibility of having a free bridge,
all of which
are
quite natural, and to be expected. But there is another class of
persons, who,
thoughtless
of the rights of others, ignorant of the relations which exist
between
the
public and the bridge proprietors, and utterly regardless of anything
and all
things,
except what may seem to be their own immediate convenience, are loud
with
their clamors; first, because the prprietors do not work miracles in
navigation;
and secondly because they do contemplate taking steps toward the
restoration
of a toll bridge.”
Common sense should
tell you that it is expensive to build and maintain a bridge like
this one, and how was it going to be funded without a toll?
The
proprietors put out a request for bids, and the bid was won by Bella
Fletcher, of Claremont, who bid $23 a foot. Fletcher was associated
with other bridges in the Upper Valley, including a Hanover Bridge, a
bridge across the Ompompanusic, and an Orford-Fairlee bridge. The
bridge was specified to be exactly like the previous one, but higher
in elevation. Each of the successive bridges was higher than the one
before it. Fletcher was born in Newport, NH in 1811 and lived in
Claremont his whole life, dying in 1877 at age 66. Thus he was 55
when he built the Cornish Windsor bridge. Although he lived in
Claremont his whole life, he must have spent protracted amounts of
time at the locations where he was building these bridges, because
the roads and transportation methods of the day did not allow for a
commute to work.
James
Tasker worked with Bella Fletcher on many of these bridges. He was
26 years younger than Fletcher, having been born in Cornish in 1837,
and probably did more heavy labor. Although one could argue that men
in those days were tougher and more used to hard work, 55 years old
is still 55 years old and someone with as much prestige in the
bridge building trade as Bella Fletcher would have had an assistant.
James Tasker lived in Cornish his whole life. His first wife, Mary,
died in 1864. Subsequently, James married Mary's sister Adeline. He
had three children with Mary and two with Adeline.
The
National Park Service paper tells us that Tasker was an “intuitive”
architect, in that he could neither read nor write. I would venture a
guess that Fletcher did most of the designing of the bridges and
Tasker supervised the crew and did more of the hands on construction.
The paper tells us that vital statistics say that Fletcher is listed
as a bridge builder. This paper was written in 1985 and amended in 2003. In 2014, you can
go to Ancestry.com and see for yourself what these people themselves
told the census reporters their occupations were. In 1860, Fletcher
is listed as a house builder, but in 1870, he is listed as a bridge
builder. Keep in mind that this was information the citizens
themselves, or their wives, more likely, gave to the census taker.
Thus in 1860, he or his wife would identify him as a house builder,
but by 1870, he had established himself as a bridge builder. In 1850,
he is identified as a mechanic, which could have been anything, a
trade that was not farming. Obviously it wasn't what we today think
of a mechanic, which would be working on motorized vehicles.
Fletcher's death certificate also lists him as a bridge builder, and
it says that he died of consumption. Consumption is Tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis is a wasting disease. People can have it for several
years, but they get weaker and weaker as the disease progresses,
reinforcing the idea that Tasker did much of the heavy labor on the
bridges, probably increasingly as time went on.
James
Tasker is listed in the 1880, at age 53, and the 1870 census, at age
43, as a farmer. Keep in mind that Fletcher died of consumption in
1877. In 1860, James was 33 and listed his occupation as a carpenter.
In 1850, he was 24 and lived with his parents, his father being a
farmer. They list James' occupation as builder. In 1870, the census
says that he has $6000 worth of real estate and $2000 worth of
personal property, for the largest combined asset total of anyone on
the page. In 1860, he has $1000 worth of real estate and $500 worth
of personal property. Not the highest on the page, but an impressive
amount of property just the same. Nowhere in the censuses does it
indicate that James is illiterate, although there is a spot for that.
James' father, however, is also named James and the censuses do
indicate that he is illiterate.
James
Tasker died in 1913, in a hospital in Claremont, of an apoplexy
(stroke) brought on by a blow to the head. His occupation is listed
as a contractor/builder. After the turn of the century, you have to
be careful not to make assumptions about where people's place of
death is listed on Ancestry.com, because people started dying in
hospitals. Tasker's death in a hospital indicates that he had enough
money to pay for a trip to the hospital, and his family was modern
enough to bring him there for treatment after his stroke, or after
the accident. At the turn of the century, many people would not have
considered going to the hospital. At the most, they would have
called the doctor to come to the house and treat someone who was sick
or injured. On the other hand, it was becoming more common,
especially among the better educated or well off, to go to the
hospital for a serious illness or injury.
Over
the years the bridge was frequently fixed and maintained. The
prompt, careful attention it got throughout the decades probably is
one of the reasons it is still standing. James Tasker himself made
some repairs in 1887. In 1935, the State of New Hampshire bought the
bridge from the proprietors for $20,000, the exact cost of the
original bridge. It continued to be a toll bridge until 1943, when
the New Hampshire legislature decided it should be free. It was the
last toll bridge spanning the Connecticut River. The Cornish Windsor
Covered Bridge is the longest covered bridge in the United States.
I
have a lot of questions about the people associated with the bridge,
and the process of funding and building the bridge. Clearly Fletcher
and Tasker didn't build the bridge by themselves. How many other
laborers worked on the bridge and who were they? Where did the come
from? Who were proprietors of the original company, other than
Jonathan Chase? Who were the proprietors after Jonathan died? Did
they have a chairman or some executive leader? Who were the
proprietors that ended up selling the bridge in 1935? What were the
considerations that made New Hampshire decide to buy the bridge? I
am going to post this without the answers to these questions, but I
will do more research and update the post later, which I hate to do
because it screws up my hit statistics.
I
know that often high school students use my blog to get information
for assignments for school. If you are a building trades student or
someone with an interest in architecture, there is plenty of
information online about the building and the architecture of the
bridge. Share your projects with me and I will gladly post them using
you as a guest contributor – text, pictures of your project, or
both.
There
are a plethora of sources online pertaining to the Cornish Windsor
Covered Bridge. The sources that I used the most were :
Bennett,
Laura, Mackay, Dorottya and Spivey, Justin
Cornish Windsor Covered Bridge
National Park Service Department of the Interior Historic American
Engineering Record 2003
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/nh/nh0100/nh0177/data/nh0177data.pdf
Mackay,
Dorottya and Spivey, Justin Addendum to Cornish Windsor Bridge
National Park Service
Department of the Interior Historic American Engineering Record 2003
http://www.nps.gov/history/hdp/samples/HAER/Cornish-Windsor%20Engr%20Report%20-%20Final%20-%20LL.pdf
Garvin,
James Report on the Cornish Bridge Building 45 Bridge
Street Windsor Vermont New
Hampshire Division of Historical Resources 2003
http://www.nh.gov/nhdhr/publications/documents/cornish_bridge_building.pdf
Ancestry.com
-always
