Toll or No Toll - Cornish - Windsor Covered Bridge

At the beginning of the 20^th century, people on both sides of the Cornish-Windsor bridge initiated another campaign to make passage over the bridge free of charge. The proposed plan was to have both towns share the responsibility for the maintenance of the bridge. In 1926, Richard Turner Dana, an engineer specializing in construction, wrote a book entitled “The Bridge at Windsor, Vermont and Its Economic Implications”. The proprietors of the bridge at the time hired him to do an inspection of the bridge, and to do what would probably now be called a feasibility study in regards to dissolving the proprietorship or maintaining the private ownership of the bridge, and thus the toll.

Dana starts the book by giving a history of the bridge starting with the ferry owned by Jonathan Chase. Chase initiated the proprietorship and the building of a bridge because the river was often unnavigable by ferry. In the winter it became solid ice, in the spring the floods made it impossible to cross and summer droughts sometimes made it too shallow. A bridge would create a crossing in all types of weather.

In those days, all roads led to the seacoast. Portsmouth was the hub of economic activity in New Hampshire, but Boston, not all that far away from Portsmouth, was New England's primary city. Businessmen often traveled to Portsmouth on business. Farmers drove herds of cattle and sheep to Portsmouth, either to sell on the hoof to become meat on the tables of families in the cities, or to meat processors who slaughtered the animals, salted the meat and shipped it to the Caribbean islands.

Windsor was the premier city in Vermont in the late 18^th and early 19^th century, and was a focal point for commerce headed east, toward the seacoast and away from Vermont. Windsor was the last outpost of civilization before the wilderness of the Vermont frontier began. In 1790, the population of Windsor was 1542 people. One hundred years later, the town had grown to 2,175 people. In 2000, Windsor had a population of 3,756. Cornish, on the other hand, was much smaller. In 1790 it had a population of 982 and one hundred years later the population had grown to 1156. Cornish in 2000 had a population of 1,640.

During Vermont's agricultural heyday, there was heavy traffic over the bridge. To give an example, on Monday October 24, 1825, 838 sheep and 259 cattle crossed the bridge. On the heaviest day ever, more than a thousand sheep crossed on their way to market on the seacoast. Almost all the traffic on the bridge came from points north and west. Stagecoaches also used the bridge in their routes from Vermont to New Hampshire. Dana mentions Skinner's Stage, Pette's Stage, and the Concord and Lebanon Stages. Apparently the stagecoaches operated from 1825 to 1836. Probably prior to 1825, there weren't enough people in Vermont to merit a stagecoach route, and after 1836, the railroads took the place of the stagecoach as transportation.

Dana writes that in some years, the bridge operated at a loss, which occurred when the expenses of repair and maintenance exceeded revenue. During those years, the proprietors applied to the New Hampshire legislature for a toll increase. The same thing happens today when electric companies, phone companies, and the post office apply for a rate hike. In fact, Dana points out that toll roads and toll bridges were the oldest public utilities.

He explains why so many New England bridges were covered. In other parts of the United States, bridges are made of stone, but in New England, lumber was so plentiful that bridges were made of wood instead of stone. The Cornish -Windsor bridge was built of “clear cedar”. The roofs over the bridges made them last ten times longer than if they were uncovered.

The present bridge was built in 1866, after several earlier models were washed away in floods. The 1866 version was exactly like its predecessor, but built higher up, hopefully out of the way of flood water. In 1912, it was thoroughly examined by engineers for the first time since it was built, and showed no signs of deterioration in the wood. The wood was actually bored in 18 places to make sure it wasn't rotting from the inside out, and every spot was negative for any damage or rot.

Dana says that by the present (meaning 1926), the vast majority of the traffic over the bridge was automobiles. He claims that automobiles cause less vibration on the floor of the bridge than horses hooves – (remember, he's talking about Model T's, not heavy pickups or dumptrucks) and certainly the floor is cleaner. It never occurred to me that all of that livestock and the horses that went over the bridge daily would have left a lot of manure behind, and the fact that the bridge was covered meant that the rain didn't wash it away and the sun didn't dry it out. Probably the proprietors had to hire someone to clean it up.

Dana examines both sides of the great toll debate. He says that people who use the service should pay for it. People who travel over the bridge pay the toll. The guy, like the blacksmith, who almost never leaves his town should not have to pay extra taxes for a service he never uses. The toll system automatically works this way.

He does bring up an issue that I've never thought of, but is still relevant today. Voters tend to vote in favor of a building project during good economic times. This means that when the project is built, labor and materials are both expensive. Then during an economic downturn, citizens are stuck having to pay for an expensive project when money is tight. Dana says it makes more sense to vote in favor of a building project when economic times are bad. Labor is cheaper, materials are expensive, the project will provide jobs, and the citizens will pay less over time. In about five years, he was going to have ample opportunity to test that theory, during the Great Depression.

Dana doesn't solve the debate, however. The bridge was taken over by the state of Vermont during the Great Depression. Hopefully I will make it to the New Hampshire History Library in Manchester to find out why the proprietors finally gave it up. Probably traffic over the bridge slowed to a trickle in the 1930's, both of a result of the terrible economy and the loss of population in Vermont.

The toll wasn't finally abolished until 1943.