Why does Vermont have so many covered bridges?
Photographs: Famartin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ahale, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ahale, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Vermont has just over a hundred authentic covered bridges, the most per square mile and per capita of any state. Why the bridges have roofs, how a bridge counts as authentic, where they gather, which have been lost, and how to see them without a rush.
The short answer
There are just over a hundred authentic covered bridges in Vermont, which gives the state the highest number of covered bridges per square mile and per capita in the United States and in North America. A roof prolongs the life of a wooden bridge significantly and gives a stable crossing in all four seasons, which mattered in a rugged state of dense woods and settlements strung along river valleys.
This article explains why the roof was worth building, how a bridge counts as authentic, where the bridges cluster and what has been lost, with the main page on the covered bridges giving the longest examples in detail.
Why a bridge has a roof
A covered bridge is a wooden bridge whose trusses carry the load and whose roof and walls protect the timbers from rain and snow. The roof is not for the traveler. It keeps the structure dry, and a dry timber lasts far longer than one left open to the weather.
It also suited farmers, who discovered that cattle cross more calmly when the swift water below is out of sight: cows and many horses have an inborn aversion to uneven ground and moving water, and a covered bridge hides the river from them. In the more modest late nineteenth century, covered bridges were also called kissing bridges, for the privacy they gave a horse and buggy passing through.
What counts as authentic
A bridge is authentic by its construction, not its age: it is built with trusses rather than with stringers, as many non-authentic covered bridges are. Most Vermont bridges use local timber and follow local adaptations of historic building practices, so no two are exactly alike.
Vermont holds more than half of the roughly two hundred remaining historic covered bridges in New England and the third most overall, after Pennsylvania and Ohio. It is estimated that as many as 700 stood in the state at one time, and many were lost or replaced after floods.
The longest, and the oldest
The Cornish–Windsor Covered Bridge is a two-span Town lattice-truss bridge across the Connecticut River, joining Windsor, on the Vermont bank, to the opposite shore. Until 2008 it was the longest covered bridge standing in the United States, and it is still the longest wooden covered bridge. The present bridge was built in 1866, is about 449 feet long and 24 feet wide, and was a toll crossing until 1943.
The Taftsville Covered Bridge crosses the Ottauquechee River in the village of Taftsville, in Woodstock. Built in 1836, it is among the oldest covered bridges in Vermont and the country. Floods washed away the first bridge in 1807, its replacement in 1811 and a third in 1828, after which a local man, Solomon Emmons III, was hired to build a more resilient crossing. Hurricane Irene damaged it badly in 2011, and it reopened in September 2013.
How a Town truss works
The Cornish–Windsor bridge uses the lattice truss patented by Ithiel Town in 1820 and 1835, a web of crossed planks that carries the load without a single large beam. It was built in 1866 by Bela Jenks Fletcher of Claremont and James Frederick Tasker of Cornish, and bridges stood on the site in 1796, 1824 and 1828 before it. The state of New Hampshire bought it in 1936, and it became free of tolls in 1943. In 1970 the American Society of Civil Engineers named it a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, and in 1976 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Taftsville bridge shows a different tradition. Its bridge reaches 189 feet in two spans of 89 and 100 feet, from either bank to a central pier in the gorge, and is 20 feet wide. It follows an older craftsman tradition, possibly influenced by designs in Switzerland, and not a patented truss: the laminated arches look like those of the Burr arch-truss, patented in 1817, but the design is better described as a modified multiple kingpost truss with semi-independent arches.
Where they gather
Montgomery has the most covered bridges of any town in Vermont, seven. Bennington, Lyndon, Rockingham, Northfield and Tunbridge each have five. Northfield also has the only road in the United States carried over three nineteenth-century covered bridges, and the only place where two can be seen from one point: the upper, middle and lower Cox Brook Road bridges.
Every county in Vermont except Grand Isle has at least one covered bridge, about one for every 92 square miles of the state and one for every 6,172 residents. Many still carry traffic, and some are part of swimming holes, like the Grist Mill Bridge in Cambridge.
What has been lost
The Old Mead Covered Bridge in Pittsford was destroyed by fire in 1971. The Twigg-Smith Covered Bridge in West Windsor was destroyed by wind in 2002, and the Frank Lewis Covered Bridge in Woodstock by Hurricane Irene in 2011. The Cedar Swamp Covered Bridge in Cornwall burned in 2016, and the River Road Covered Bridge in Troy was destroyed by a snowmobile fire in 2021.
Each loss is a reminder that the bridges are wooden structures that depend on ongoing care. Almost all are treated as protected landmarks by their communities, with local and state preservation groups looking after them.
Seeing them
A covered bridge works best as a reason to take a back road. The Taftsville bridge lies close to the village of Woodstock, and the Connecticut River crossing at Windsor can be paired with a drive along the river. Many bridges still carry vehicles, so drive slowly through, and stay out of the traffic lane when taking photographs. Bennington has five of its own, covered with the town on the Bennington page, and Rockingham, Lyndon, Northfield and Tunbridge each have five as well, so a drive through any of those towns turns up several in an afternoon. Almost all are treated as protected landmarks.
The guide does not sell, book or reserve anything. Check with the town or the state's preservation office for any bridge that is being repaired, because the loss list shows how often these structures are damaged.
