7 minute read
Skowhegan Bridges Many helpless against the ravages of nature
Skowhegan Bridges
Many helpless against the ravages of nature
Advertisement
by Brian Swartz
Norridgewock shipped a bridge downriver to Skowhegan in March of 1849. Unfortunately, by the time it arrived at Skowhegan Island, the bridge was a bit battered — to say the least.
From its eastern border with Pittsfield, Canaan originally stretched west to the Norridgewock boundary. People living in Canaan south of the Kennebec River formed Bloomfield in 1814. Perhaps envious of their neighbors’ freedom from Canaan taxation, residents in western Canaan petitioned the Maine Legislature to form the town of Milburn, incorporated on February 5, 1823. Located where an island split the Kennebec, which dropped twenty-eight feet over some distance, the place was known by the Norridgewock tribe as “Scoogun,” “Schoughegan,” and other anglicized pronunciations that essentially meant a “watching place” for fish, especially abundant Atlantic salmon.
Usage whittled the names to “Skowhegan,” which became Milburn’s name in 1836. Bloomfield merged with Skowhegan in 1861, and Cornville and Norridgewock both lost bits and pieces to Skowhegan through the mid-19th century.
Rather than construct a bridge across the gorge downriver from Skowhegan Island, Canaan officials paid Norridgewock contractor William Weston $5,500 in 1809 to build two covered bridges from each river bank to Skowhegan Island. Named for the North and South channels that they respectively spanned, the covered bridges served their purposes for a long time.
Decades later a narrow suspension bridge dubbed the “Swinging Bridge” opened to pedestrians on the island’s western side. The Maine Central Railroad spanned the Skowhegan gorge with a bridge now open to bicyclists and pedestrians crossing the river from downtown Skowhegan to access the paved Skowhegan Riverwalk.
Meanwhile, the first bridge spanning the Kennebec River at Norridgewock opened on October 31, 1810. The Halloween date was probably (cont. on page 46)
WOODLAWN
REHAB & NURSING CENTER
Physician Directed Rehabilitation Program Long-Term Care Skilled Care Respite Care Secure Care Protection 474-9300
donwoodlawn@firstatlantic.com 59 W. Front St. Skowhegan
FLOORMASTER NORTH
Owned & Operated By Bruce & Geoff Reynolds
Carpet • Inlaid • Tile • Laminate
Maine Traditions Hardwood Floors Sales, Service & Installation
474-5220
Route 201 227 Waterville Road Skowhegan, Maine fl oormasternorth.com
You’ll love our outside deck seating overlooking beautiful Kennebec gorge
Restaurant
We Cater Special Events!
LIVE MUSIC Thursday & Saturday 6pm-9pm Tues-Sat 11:30am-9pm • Friday til 10pm • Sun-Mon 11am-9pm
39 Water Street Downtown Skowhegan, ME 207-474-6627 • oldmillpub.net
BOYNTON’S GREENHOUSE
Family owned Florist, Greenhouse & Garden Center 144 Madison Ave., Skowhegan (207)474-2892 www.boyntonsgreenhouses.com ______________________________________________
Knowledgeable staff to help your garden grow!
Garden Center open May through September 5 Greenhouses with annuals, perennials, vegetables & more
(cont. from page 45) inauspicious; broken up by warming temperatures, river ice swept down on this bridge on March 25, 1811 and tore away one pier and two hundred feet of the bridge itself.
Not repaired until that December, the bridge survived until destroyed by ice on March 26, 1826.
A replacement bridge opened in April of 1828. “Its existence was short, and on March 31, 1831, it bade us a final farewell,” recalled J.W. Hanson in his History of the Old Towns Norridgewock and Canaan, published in 1849.
Costing around $4,700, the third Norridgewock bridge opened in September of 1835 and, with the rampaging Kennebec “leaving a wreck behind, ceased to exist as a bridge” on January 31, 1839, Hanson noted.
The fourth bridge opened in the autumn of 1839 and survived to “a very considerable age — for a Norridgewock bridge,” Hansom commented. “It took French leave on March 26, 1846.
“Designed to be a strong structure... bridge No. 5” was contracted for $11,000 in the autumn of 1848. Before starting the bridge’s construction, workers raised granite abutments on both banks and “solid granite” piers in the Kennebec, Hanson reported.
Granite “was thought to be an immovable foundation,” he commented.
Workers finished the abutments and piers and extended the bridge “to the second pier” in late March of 1849, Hanson reported. Then after dark on March 29th, “a small body of ice moved against” the bridge and “laid the woodwork a waste of ruin.”
Hanson witnessed what happened next. On Friday, March 30th, “the whole field of ice, from the bridge to Bomazeen Rapids, began to move.” Now two and a half feet thick and “loosened... from the shores” by “a violent rain” lasting “several days,” the ice broke up as the Kennebec River rose, Hanson noted.
“All day the large floating cakes had been drawn under the immense [ice] field above the bridge, and as they struck the ice over them, and as the rapidly rising waters broke the great body [of ice], the hollow, booming sound filled the ear like distant thunder,” Hanson recalled.
Its movement starting and stopping, the ice field commenced its “grand march” at 6 p.m., he said. “With a steady, stately, but irresistible movement, it passed down the river,” and “all obstacles gave way before it.”
Tearing “trees, deep-rooted and gigantic” from the river banks, “the mighty waters” reached Bridge No. 5 at Norridgewock. Trees and ice “struck the northern pier,” and “the iron bands confining the [granite] rocks were sundered like flax in a candle’s blaze,” the awe-struck Hanson watched.
(207) 474-2591 • 257 Waterville Rd., Skowhegan, ME www.whittemoreandsons.com
Do You Enjoy Writing? Do You Love Maine? Do You Love History? If so, give us a call.
We Are Always Looking for HISTORY WRITERS to contribute to our magazine! Discover Maine Magazine (207) 874-7720 • 1-800-753-8684
207-431-3218
Canaan, ME
Private Powerline Construction Service Pole Installation Ledge Drilling
207-431-3218 • tuttle593@yahoo.com www.newgenpowerline.com
— All makes and models —
Farm, Construction, Forestry & more
JT’S FINEST KIND SAW
Chainsaws Lawn Tractors
Trimmers Brush Cutters
474-9377
579 Skowhegan Rd. (Rte. 2) • Norridgewock fi nestkindsaw.com
“small business works”
Water Treatment Systems Propane, Natural Gas & Oil Installations Licensed and Insured 858-4455 • Cell: 692-3153
“The granite rocks forming the pier, many of them weighing several tons, were hurled from their resting-places or borne away on the ice, that moved on regardless of their vast weight,” he said.
Hanson apparently rushed to “the Falls of Skowhegan,” where “the huge body of ice bore down in wild majesty against the rocky island, as if to overwhelm it... and the island, indignant at this assault, crushed the huge mass, which parted, and passed on over the falls.”
Hanson watched as “fallen trees, logs, and earth, plowed from the shores, went over in wild confusion, and the roar filled the ear of the spectator.”
Somewhere amidst that debris and ice traveled the remaining wooden wreckage and at least a few granite-pier stones from the Norridgewock bridge. It slid beneath the Skowhegan Island bridges and vanished into history. Not until the next winter would Bridge No. 5 be rebuilt.
Ironically, Skowhegan’s South Channel Bridge, the original 1808 covered bridge, survived until a steady rain loosened the thick Kennebec River ice in mid-December of 1901. Sweeping logs, ice floes, and even a Madison footbridge before it, the raging river piled debris into the South Channel Bridge. Its battered deck and sides repaired afterwards, the covered bridge gave way to a steel bridge in 1904.
Richard H. Lewis & Son
Building & Remodeling
The Marketplace Of Fine Homes
207-415-4476
Bridgton, ME
Stacy’s Service Center
Russell C. Stacy MASTER OF ALL
“Have tools, will travel” Hours: Maybe Tomorrow
From Small Engines to Cars, Trucks & Light Excavation Work 452-2266
(call if you want but I won’t answer)
Rt. 117 • 449 Bull Ring Rd. • Denmark, ME
A family owned business for 45 years!
Record Building Supply, Inc.
Quality & Service Since 1996
Complete Line Of Building Materials Featuring Benjamin Moore Paints
(207) 539-4219
Pass on a tradition that will last a lifetime.
mefi shwildlife.com
OBERG INSURANCE & REAL ESTATE AGENCY
Save Money! Call now for a free insurance quote
Full Service Real Estate
Member
132 Main Street, Bridgton, ME 04009
