Beaverkill Covered Bridge, Beaverkill New York

Date added: April 12, 2024

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The Beaverkill Bridge is an example of the popular Town Lattice Truss type, characterized by its intersectional diagonal members secured with wooden pins. This bridge also features an unusual variation of the type, as it was constructed with additional diagonal members at the ends of the trusses. The additional planks radiate in a fanlike pattern from the bearing point. According to bridge historians, this variation distributes the load over a smaller area, eliminating the need for long abutment seats of bolster beams and providing greater strength. Similar radiating planks were featured in a patent granted to John C. Briggs in 1863, so it is unlikely that the Beaverkill bridge builder conceived the variation himself. Although there are several examples in New Hampshire, the variation is unusual. In New York, Davidson's three bridges are the only known examples of the type, and of those, the Beaverkill Covered Bridge is the most intact and best preserved.

The Beaverkill Bridge was threatened in 1948, when the town of Rockland expressed its intent to replace it with a metal structure. Newspapers cite Frederick B. Rogers as undertaking a campaign to save the bridge, persuading the town board to commit $700 to its restoration. Although reports mention that a Richard Bloom was hired to do the work, there is no information about what, if any work was undertaken at this time. The town maintained the bridge until 1958, when Sullivan County took possession. Over the next few decades, the county undertook major repairs, including encasing the north abutment in concrete (1958), new siding and roof (1960), stabilizing the approach and embankment, new metal roof (1991), replacing a portion of the bottom cord and adding a concrete cap on the south abutment (1993), and replacing the running boards replaced (1997). Ownership of the bridge was returned to the town with the understanding that the bridge would be preserved and the county and the New York State Department of Transportation would support its maintenance.

Beaverkill Campground

While the Beaverkill Covered Bridge was intended to serve a variety of users within the local transportation system, for much of its life it has also existed in a recreational context, and today it is the visual and functional centerpiece of the Beaverkill Campground, operated by DEC. The Beaverkill Public Campground is considered to be the second oldest public campground in the Catskill Park, the 700,000-acre preserve of public and private land identified for conservation and recreation. The modern system of publicly owned campgrounds in the Catskills and the Adirondacks had fairly impromptu beginnings. In the mid-1920s, as automobiles became more widely available, people began to access state land by simply pulling off the roads and setting up camp.

Because of the Beaverkill's popularity with trout fishermen, it was one of the areas favored by early roadside campers. However, the popularity of camping along the Beaverkill began to create problems with litter, other wastes, and fires. In response, the New York State Conservation Department (now DEC) began to designate specific areas where people could camp in this way. They began with a cleared place to pull off the road, a fireplace and, later, privies and other amenities were added. By the mid-1930s there were over a dozen such campgrounds in the Adirondacks and Catskills. During the Depression Era, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) programs expanded and enhanced many of these areas, giving them the character and appearance that we now recognize as typical of a DEC campground. During this era, road systems, swimming areas, caretaker buildings, and water and sanitary systems were constructed. At Beaverkill, much of the campground development was done between 1936 and 1939 by men from a Recreation CCC camp at Masonville in Delaware County. The campground was laid out on both sides of the bridge, with the campsites on the north side and the public access areas, including swimming, and picnicking, on the south. The camp features were constructed in the rustic style popular in state parks of this period. In this park, the stone wall that flanks the bridge and defines a public access swimming area is particularly scenic. Featuring stone posts and walls surmounted by log rails, the wall complements the dry-laid stone bridge abutments and frames the bridge, creating a picturesque and charming scene.

John Davidson

The Beaverkill Covered Bridge is attributed to John Davidson (1815-1875), who was born in Scotland and immigrated to America with his family in 1819. Davidson grew up on his family's farm in Downsville (in Colchester, Delaware County, the adjacent town to the north), where his father raised sheep. In 1845 Davidson married, and he and his wife, Amanda, settled on a farm near Shin Creek, where they raised fourteen children. In addition to farming, Davidson also engaged in lumbering (rafting logs down the upper Beaverkill) and owned a sawmill.

Although Davidson is believed to have constructed the Beaverkill bridge, no primary sources confirm this attribution, which is based on a 1942 letter from his son, J.D. Davidson, stating that his father built the bridge. More recent information provided by descendants of Davidson's younger brother Thomas asserts that the younger Davidson built the bridge. A third source, the Delaware County Biographical Review, notes that James W. Coulter, a resident of the town of Bovina, Delaware County, built the bridges at Beaverkill, Otego [Otsego County] and Cook's Falls [Butternut Grove, Colchester, Delaware County]. Neither of the latter two bridges is extant for comparison; however, Coulter's biography states that he learned and practiced bridge building as a young man and then engaged in general carpentry from 1859-1868. The 1865 date of the Beaverkill bridge would seem to put it outside his bridge-building period, but the fact that Coulter was still alive in 1895, when the biography was published, lends credence to the assertion. What is perhaps most likely is that all three were involved in the design and/or construction of the bridge, perhaps under Davidson's supervision. Coulter, a son of Scottish immigrants, may have been acquainted with the Davidsons (who grew up in the Delaware County village of Downsville) through the web of familial, religious, and social connections within Delaware County's large Scottish-American community. Both Coulter and John Davidson worked as carpenter-builders and it is not unlikely that several people were involved with the design and construction of a substantial public structure.

Although it has not been verified, it seems likely that the town of Rockland contracted with Davidson for three structures. In 1860 Davidson constructed two covered bridges: Van Tran Flat Bridge, spanning the Willowemoc near Livingston Manor, and the Bendo Bridge, also spanning the Willowemoc near Livingston Manor. The Van Trant bridge survives intact but the Bendo bridge was cut in half and moved to its current site in 1913. The 1865 Beaverkill bridge was the third and last of Davison's covered bridges in the town.

Town of Rockland

The town of Rockland was taken from the town of Neversink in 1809. Occupying a part of Sullivan County, the town is characterized by steep mountains and deep forests broken by streams and dotted by numerous ponds. Its main waterways are the Beaverkill (east-west) and the Willowemoc (north-south) Creeks, which meet near Roscoe, the town's largest village. The Beaverkill itself is divided into upper and lower sections (above and below Roscoe), which are sometimes referred to as the little and big (or Great) Beaverkill, respectively. The town was once part of the Hardenburgh patent, the enormous eighteenth-century land grant that included much of the Catskills Region. Despite its division into great lots, the town's isolation and challenging topography was uninviting, and there were few European-American settlers until after the Revolution. However, an early road from the Rondout Valley to East Branch (Delaware County) crossed the Beaverkill, Shin, Willowemoc, and Neversink waterways and is believed to have provided the first settlers with access to the Beaverkill Valley. Early settlers, mostly from Connecticut, were in search of the good flatland rumored to be found along the "Great (lower) Beaverkill." However, although some farming was done on the flats, most early settlers engaged in hunting, trapping, and logging, industries more easily supported by local conditions. Even as late as 1859, French described the town as a "rough, wild region."

Lumbering, the earliest industry in the region, began before the American Revolution in the valleys of the Delaware River and its two branches, the Beaverkill and Willowemoc. Logs were rafted down these rivers to Trenton, New Jersey, or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By the 1870s, more than 3,000 rafts traveled down the Beaverkill each year. However, the logging industry began to taper off within a decade, and the last known log raft was run down the Beaverkill in 1904. The rivers were also used to power water wheels for small-scale industries, including sawmills, grist mills, carding mills, and wood-turning mills. Later, larger, steam-powered industries supplanted the earlier ones.

The tanning industry also took hold in Sullivan County in the first half of the nineteenth century, due to the abundance of the hemlock bark necessary for the process. The War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War, with their demand for leather boots, harnesses, saddles, belts, holsters, and bandoliers, stimulated the growth and development of the industry in the region. Within ten years more than 150 tanneries were operating in the Catskills, nearly 40 of them in Sullivan County. These industries were supported by small farms and industrial hamlets surrounding the mills and tanneries. By the middle of the nineteenth century, tanneries proliferated throughout the region. In addition to the destruction of the region's hemlocks, the tanneries, which relied on an abundance of water for the tanning process and the disposition of wastes, also contributed to the pollution of local streams. The massive overuse of resources soon depleted them, and by 1885 the hemlocks were gone, the local tanneries had closed, and the industry had moved on.

However, even as the tanneries were destroying the local environment, another important regional industry was developing that would depend on preserving the region's natural character and scenic beauty. By the early 1800s, improved roads, and turnpikes opened the still remote region to tourists, especially those sportsmen who sought recreation by traveling to "the wild country." Both the Ulster and Delaware Turnpike (c1809), which connected Kingston and Delaware County, and the Newburgh-Cochecton Turnpike (1801), which extended from Newburgh across the center of Sullivan County, vastly improved access to the Beaverkill Valley. As early as the first years of the nineteenth century, tales from the rafters about the abundance of trout in Rockland's streams sparked interest in the region in large urban areas such as New York and Philadelphia. As the first visitors appeared, a hotel, Darabee's, was established in Roscoe c1805-10. This establishment became one of the most well-known and popular spots for fishermen anxious to try their luck on the Beaverkill or Willowemoc. In the 1830s or 40s, a second hotel, Murdocks, opened near Lew Beach, at the upper end of the Beaverkill Valley.

Murdock's became a famed establishment among fishermen. By 1829, with the publication of American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, the Beaverkill was well known to trout fishermen for the exceptional quality of its catch, and as reports in sporting magazines proliferated, the number of sportsmen traveling to the region increased. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Beaverkill was widely regarded as one of the premier sports for dry fly fishing in the country. The Beaverkill's long period of limited inaccessibility was in part responsible for its appeal to sportsmen, as trout were most numerous in those areas most difficult to access. As a result, the upper Beaverkill, particularly above the hamlet, became the preferred destination for many fishermen.

The arrival of the railroads changed the dynamic in the region because they vastly increased the number of potential tourists. The change began with the arrival of the Erie Railroad in Callicoon in 1848. From there, visitors could travel by stage, wagon, etc. to Roscoe. More important was the opening of the New York, Ontario & Western Railroad line in 1872. Passengers on the O&W could travel from New York or Philadelphia through Sullivan County and directly to Roscoe, making a trip to the Catskills practical for middle-class New Yorkers. This marked the beginning of a major shift in the Catskill region's economic base. The railroad actively promoted the region as a desirable trout fishing area. The onslaught of visitors placed a greater burden on natural resources and local infrastructure. New roads were built parallel to the Beaverkill allowing more people to venture further. Many of these anglers found the best fishing spots and camped along the stream.

Within two decades of the railroad's arrival, the upper Beaverkill was a center for guest houses converted from old farms and fishing clubs that purchased and owned riverfrontage and fishing rights. One of the earliest was Trout Valley Farm, established in an old farmhouse below the Beaverkill, near the covered bridge. The first fishing club established after the railroad arrived was Salmo Fontinalis (1873) on the upper Beaverkill, near the hamlet of Hardenburgh. Other clubs on the Beaverkill included the Balsam Lake Club (1883), near the headwaters, the Fly Fishers Club of Brooklyn (1895), the Beaverkill Trout Club (1910), in an old farmhouse above Beaverkill, Whirling Dun Camp (1913), near Turnwood, and several others. The perils of over-fishing that accompanied the increasing popularity of the Beaverkill prompted some fishermen to turn towards conservation. James Spencer Van Clef (1831-1901), who fished the Beaverkill for forty years and was a long-time guest of Murdock's Hotel, is a particularly notable example. Van Clef wrote many articles about the region in magazines such as Forest and Stream, in which he praised the early settlers of the valley and their conservative ways, traits

adopted by the earliest wave of sportsmen, the so-called "gentleman anglers". Van Clef came to believe that the best way to preserve the natural resources that drew him to the Beaverkill Valley was to place large parcels of land in private ownership, where access could be controlled. He and his friends bought up substantial portions of the valley, on which they developed private estates and fishing clubs. This, of course, also served to reserve the most scenic locations and the best fishing spots for the gentlemen anglers. Van Clef became an influential conservationist and later wrote the general fish and game laws for New York State.

Beaverkill Valley

Even today, few roads penetrate the upper Beaverkill Valley. Craigie Claire Road (Sullivan County Route 30), follows the upper Beaverkill Creek in the northernmost corner of Rockland before it ends at the Beaverkill Covered Bridge. At its westernmost point, the road turns north into Delaware County, where it connects with Delaware County Route 7, which follows the major north-south passage through the mountainous center of Delaware County. East of the bridge, CR 30 merges with Sullivan County Route 152, which continues along the Beaverkill to Lew Beach, near the Ulster County border.

Local tradition holds that a John Hunter constructed a road along the upper Beaverkill in 1815, precipitating the small settlements of Craigie Claire, Beaverkill, and Shin Creek (now Lew Beach) along the creek. There is not much information about these early settlements, but presumably, they catered to the earliest loggers, tanners, and fishermen. The first tannery was constructed on the Beaverkill in 1832 by Linus Babcock, who constructed a dam across the creek at the hamlet of Beaverkill. By the 1860s there were eight tanneries in the area, including four on the Beaverkill. Two of those, at Shin Creek (Lew Beach) and Beaverkill, were located on the upper Beaverkill, while two others, at Roscoe and Butternut Grove (Cook's Falls), were on the lower section of the creek. Beaverkill was one of the larger hamlets, having, in addition to the tannery, a post office. In 1872, the hamlet of Beaverkill was described as having "a school, a tannery...a blacksmith shop and about one hundred inhabitants." It is not known when the first bridge was constructed at this location but its terrain made it a good location for a bridge, and the hamlet and mill would have been a logical place for a crossing. The 1875 Beers atlas shows a crossing near the site of Babcock and Elisworth's tannery, and, by this time, the bridge had been constructed.

Covered Bridges

Throughout much of the nineteenth century, New York was predominately rural; its settlement pattern generally consisted of widely separated communities whose economy was based upon subsistence agriculture and local water-powered industry. Few improved roads connected population centers. As the Empire State grew and its economy expanded, however, road and bridge improvements became essential for linking emerging centers of civic market activity.

The history of covered timber bridge construction in New York State spans the period from the first decade of the nineteenth century to the era of the First World War. The earliest known extant covered bridge was built in 1825; the latest in 1912. Covered bridges are a distinctive property type reflecting vernacular engineering design and construction practice.

The earliest permanent bridges in New York were constructed using readily available local materials and skills. Because the cost of constructing bridges generally was the responsibility of local governments, they turned to readily available materials and skills for this purpose. The abundant timber and stone resources found throughout much of New York State made these materials the logical choice for bridge construction. The relative ease of construction was another factor that mitigated in favor of wooden bridge construction. The timber framing skills of local millwrights and joiners were readily adaptable to the construction of timber bridges.

During the Colonial period, the first timber bridges incorporated the Kingpost or the Queenpost truss configuration. These simple, open structures with plank decks were widely erected across small streams, though their use was limited to clear spans less than fifty feet in length. Longer crossings were possible using multiple spans supported by mid-stream piers or timber cribbing. The open timber truss bridge remained an inexpensive and popular form for farm bridges and crossings on minor roads until the early twentieth century, when it was supplanted by the metal span. The open trusswork was sometimes sheathed with protective weather boards to preserve the life of the truss. Because of its horizontal top chord, it was possible to cover a Queenpost truss bridge with a protective roof. The Copeland Covered Bridge (1879), a farmer's bridge in rural Saratoga County, is an extant example of a covered Queenpost truss bridge remaining in New York.

From the early decades of the nineteenth century, the cost of building and maintaining timber bridges generally fell upon local governments or state-chartered bridge or turnpike companies, which were established as for-profit ventures. It soon became evident that protecting the bridge's structural system from the elements would reduce the burden of maintenance and replacement costs. This protection was most readily achieved by covering the timber truss bridge with a roof and board sheathing to enclose the frame structure.

During the Federal period, inventor Theodore Burr (1772-1822) designed a highly successful long-span bridge form that combined the structural advantages of a simple timber truss with a relieving arch. Burr patented his timber truss design in 1817. His first successful bridge was a four-span structure erected across the Hudson River at Waterford, New York in 1804. Built of hand-hewn pine structural members, the Waterford bridge was sheathed with pine plank siding and covered by a shingled roof. Burr's bridge stood for more than a century until it was destroyed by fire in 1909. The Burr Arch Truss is represented in New York by three extant historic covered bridges: Perrine's Bridge (1844), Ulster County, Salisbury Center Bridge (1875), Herkimer County, and the Hyde Hall Bridge (1825), Otsego County.

A successful truss design nearly contemporary with the Burr truss was the Town lattice truss, patented in 1820 by the versatile builder/architect Ithiel Town (1784-1844). Consisting of a horizontal top and bottom chord connected by a web of closely spaced, alternating diagonal timbers, the Town lattice truss included no vertical members; the required stiffness was achieved by connecting the intersecting diagonals with wood pins. Carried on piers placed at intervals, bridges incorporating the Town lattice truss could span considerable distances. Its inherent strength coupled with its ease of construction made the Town truss design a popular design for highway and early railroad bridges until the post-Civil War era. The covered bridges at Eagleville and Shushan, Washington County, are notable examples of the Town truss form.

During the 1830s, Colonel Stephen H. Long (1784-1864) of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers perfected a rigid timber truss form that incorporated panels consisting of intersecting diagonals and counters. Long's initial patented design of 1830 for an "assisted truss" included a redundant Kingpost relieving truss above the center panel points (where the greatest flex would occur). With practical experience, Long refined his design to eliminate its "overbuilt" characteristics, receiving additional patents in 1836 and 1839. The Old Blenheim Bridge (1855), Schoharie County, (destroyed 2011) was a notable example of the Long truss design.

The final major timber truss design to achieve widespread popularity during the late nineteenth century was first patented in 1840 by William Howe (1803-1852). The Howe truss consisted of horizontal timber top and bottom chords and diagonal wood compression members combined with vertical tension members made of wrought iron. The ends of the iron tensions rods were threaded and secured to iron shoes at the panel points of the web. The inherent properties of wood and iron as construction materials were effectively used in Howe's truss; this hybrid truss became the most widely constructed, standard American timber bridge form of the nineteenth century. The Rexleigh (1874) and Buskirk (1857) Covered Bridges in Washington County and the Jay Covered Bridge (1857), Essex County, are Howe truss structures.

By the third quarter of the nineteenth century, the covered timber truss bridge was being supplanted by the manufactured metal truss bridge on the roads and rail lines of New York State. Stimulated by wartime growth and development, iron manufacturers turned to the production of standardized metal bridge components in the post-Civil War era. The increased strength, ease of construction, and reduced cost associated with metal bridges won favor among local governments and railroad companies; by the 1880's, the heyday of wooden bridge-building had passed. Although several examples of covered timber truss spans remain from the early twentieth century in rural areas of New York State, the advantages of iron bridges were clearly understood and widely applied well before 1900.

Bridge Description

The Beaverkill Covered Bridge is located in the town of Rockland, which occupies the north-central portion of Sullivan County, bordered by Delaware County on the west and Ulster County on the east. The bridge is sited near the northernmost point in the county, just southeast of the Delaware County line. The Beaverkill Creek flows east-east through a mountainous area that rises to 1,800 feet just north of the bridge. The economy of the area is dependent on its recreational use, and the creek is renowned for its opportunities for dry fly fishing. The wooden bridge carries CR 20 over Beaverkill Creek and is within the early twentieth-century Beaverkill Campground, a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation facility. A rustic fence, consisting of stone walls and piers surmounted by log rails, flanks the eastern abutment of the bridge and extends north-south along the creek. The fence dates to the early twentieth-century development of the park and campground.

Constructed in 1865, the bridge is a 98' long wooden structure constructed on dry-laid stone abutments. New concrete facing now covers the western abutment, which survives behind the concrete. The eastern approach to the bridge is a steep timber ramp constructed over a massive dry-laid stone embankment. The ramp is 10' long and features timber guide rails supported on timber posts placed outside the stone embankment. The bridge is a single-span lattice truss type sheathed in wooden vertical board siding and sheltered by a metal roof. Diagonals are 12" planks joined at each point of intersection by wooden pins. Heavy wooden planks form the top and bottom chords. The bridge also features three additional diagonal members at the ends of the truss, a variation used to provide extra strength. The structure is supported by four enclosed wooden buttresses on each side. The wood plank deck is 13' wide, while the portal width is 14.5'. The portal height is 11.5'.

Changes include the addition of concrete facing on the west abutment (1958), the addition of a concrete cap on the east abutment (1960s), replacement of the planks on the approach ramp (1960s), and replacement of the roof (1960s).