By Bill Caswell, National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges
New Brunswick’s covered bridges have been receiving a great deal of attention lately. While this is fantastic news for the historic preservation community, it resulted from two unfortunate losses. The French Village (Hammond River #2) Bridge in Kings County was removed in 2017 and the Bell (South Oromocto River #3) Bridge in Sunbury County was badly damaged by high water and ice and removed in January 2018. New Brunswick’s historic covered bridges are not only a vital component of the transportation network, they are also an important part of its heritage and too many have been lost in recent years. In addition to their heritage value, they provide an economic benefit by attracting tourists to the communities near these structures.
My family has enjoyed many vacations and camping trips in New Brunswick over the years. The province has much to offer for the whole family; beautiful scenery, natural attractions, lighthouses and, of course, the covered bridges. During the first visit in 1986 (before children), the goal was to see as many covered bridges as we could fit into the trip. Check it off the list, take a couple photos and move on to the next one. Subsequent visits were at a more relaxed pace where we could see the uniqueness of each location. Not only the details of the structure itself, but its surroundings. Each setting has its own personality.
Although the bridges may be similar in appearance, when looking at the bigger picture they are quite unusual. Only New Brunswick and Québec ever had a significant number of covered bridges and nearly all of the ones remaining in Canada are contained within those two provinces. The variation of the Howe truss design commonly used in New Brunswick was ideal for its time. It is a strong design and the truss components could often be prepared at a location convenient to the contractor, transported to the bridge site and assembled there. This variation of Howe’s design, which is so common here, is not found outside of the province. Similarly, most of Québec’s covered bridges use a variation of Ithiel Town’s lattice truss design, a design which is also unique to that province.
The similarities in appearance of New Brunswick’s covered bridges are no surprise when you consider that most of the construction projects were managed through the provincial government unlike nearby states where the individual community or county government handled that task. When reviewing project bid records from the first three decades of the 20th century, a few names appear repeatedly: A.E. Smye, W.R. Fawcett, Whitman Brewer, C.J.B. Simmons and W. J. McKenzie seem to be the most common ones. I have started researching these men to learn more about them and the bridges they built. If you are familiar with them, I would enjoy hearing from you.
When the League for Rural Renewal was performing maintenance work around the bridges and developing public parks at bridge sites in the 1970’s, our organization led bridge tours to the area so American tourists could witness the good work being done by that group. Unfortunately, the League apparently dissolved after its leader the Hon. Milton Gregg passed away.
The recent losses have re-vitalized interest in the bridges. Ray Boucher is spearheading the Covered Bridges Conservation Association of New Brunswick. The group, with support from Association Heritage New Brunswick, has made a substantial difference in a short time. Their efforts prompted the National Trust for Canada to add the province’s covered bridges to their 2018 list of the nation’s Top 10 Endangered Places. This helped initiate a DTI study to evaluate the covered bridges and determine the best way to maintain them while providing for the needs of the communities served by them.
To further encourage covered bridge tourism, my wife and I have organized a group tour to share our love of New Brunswick with others. Our group of 30 to 40 will visit 25 covered bridges and two uncovered wood-truss bridges between July 25th and 28th. Maybe we will meet some of you along the way.
Sunday August 4 is Love Your Covered Bridges Day in New Brunswick. What better time to visit one (or more!) of the 58 covered bridges remaining in this province. We hope you will join us . . .
Bill Caswell has been President of the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges since January 2014. The all-volunteer, non-profit organization was founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1950. The Society’s mission is to promote the preservation of historic covered wood-truss bridges along with gathering covered bridge information and photographs. He also maintains the Covered Spans of Yesteryear website, www.lostbridges.org, which, with the help of a few dedicated researchers, has documented over 13,000 past and present covered bridges in Canada and the United States. Bill is a licensed Professional Engineer for the New Hampshire Department of Transportation where he has worked for the past 35 years
