Hyde Hall Covered Bridge, New York

Date added: April 20, 2024

Do you have an update on the current status of this structure? Please tell us about it in the comments below.

The Hyde Hall Covered Bridge is a rare and substantially intact example of timber truss bridge design and construction in Otsego County. Built in 1825 as a component of the vast Clarke estate, the bridge incorporates the Burr arch truss design developed and patented by Theodore Burr in 1817. The bridge truss system remains intact and is one of only three known extant examples of Burr arch truss bridges remaining in New York.

The former estate on which the Hyde Hall Covered Bridge is located was a tract of 600 acres first acquired by Englishman George Clarke in 1738. Clarke served as colonial lieutenant-governor of New York colony from 1733-1744. Upon the death of his wife, Clarke returned to England. After the American Revolution, the estate was claimed by George Hyde Clarke, great-grandson of the former colonial official. Clarke became an American citizen, and elected to establish a manor home on the shore of Otsego Lake. Clarke commissioned noted Albany architect Philip Hooker to design his residence, which was built in stages between 1818 and 1833. Hyde Hall is considered among the most outstanding architectural landmarks of the Federal period. The estate remained in Clarke family ownership until 1940. The tract was acquired by the State of New York in 1963 for development of Glimmerglass State Park.

The covered bridge located on the former Clarke estate is significant in the transportation history of the region. Erected in 1825 to carry the main estate road across Shadow Brook, the 53-foot span is an original, extant example of numerous dependencies and outbuildings built to serve the needs of Hyde Hall during the formative period of the Clarke estate. (Among the extensive preserved written records of the Hyde Hall estate property are receipts and accounts from 1825 for lumber used to construct the bridge.) The bridge later became part of the Otsego Lake Turnpike, a toll road created by Clarke to shorten the travel distance between Cooperstown to the south and the Great Western Turnpike through a diagonal, three-mile route across his estate lands.

The span incorporates a combination of the Burr segmental arch truss (patented 1817) with a system of vertical posts and intersecting diagonal timbers. This structure is the earliest known New York example of a timber Burr arch truss bridge; it is also the earliest covered wood bridge remaining in New York State. Restored in 1967, the Hyde Hall Covered Bridge serves as a pedestrian crossing in Glimmerglass State Park.

Although hundreds of covered wood truss bridges were built throughout New York, only 24 remain.

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.

Throughout much of the nineteenth century, New York was predominantly 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 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 during the period of significance. 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 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 1880s, 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, the advantages of iron bridges were clearly understood and widely applied well before 1900.

Bridge Description

The Hyde Hall Covered Bridge is a single-lane, timber-framed, gable-roofed structure located in the town of Springfield, Otsego County. The bridge was originally constructed to carry a private estate road across Shadow Brook, a small stream flowing into the adjacent north end of Otsego Lake. The covered bridge is part of Hyde Hall State Historic Site, which in turn is located within Glimmerglass State Park. Sited with its portal ends oriented east and west, the covered bridge occupies a picturesque, wooded setting; the former road is now used exclusively as a footpath to approach Hyde Hall.

The Hyde Hall Covered Bridge is a single-span structure with the following general dimensions:

Overall length: 53' 7"
Overall width: 14' 9"
Deck width: 14' 3"
Portal height: 10' 7.5"

The superstructure of hewn and sawed timber rests on modern concrete abutments faced with mortared fieldstone. The bottom chord is continuous, each side constructed of paired hewn timbers. Vertical square timbers at each panel point are notched at their lower ends and secured between the beams of the lower chord. The top chord consists of separate, sawed beams notched into the vertical timbers and anchored with wood pins (trunnels). The diagonal braces and counters of each panel consist of single timbers notched at their point of intersection and anchored by threaded iron pins with nuts; they are also notched and pin-connected to the upper and lower chords. The web incorporates the patented Burr arch truss spanning six panels, with an additional sheltering panel added at each portal end. The paired Burr arches spring from the abutments, and are built in sections using mortise-and-tenon joinery. The exterior of the bridge is covered with narrow, horizontal weatherboard sheathing attached to vertical nailers spaced at regular intervals.

Overhead bracing consists of squared timbers with knee braces mortised and pinned to the vertical posts. Roof rafters extend beyond the top chord, and are secured to it using imposts attached to the plate. Roof boards extend the length of the bridge, serving as nail strips for the wood shingle roof. The floor beams span the two trusses, with the deck planks laid longitudinally. Horizontal plank sheathing to a height of three feet above the deck protected the truss members from the hubs of passing vehicles.

At the time the Hyde Hall property was acquired by the State of New York in 1963, the covered bridge was in poor repair, with holes in its roof and siding and loss of one-half the floorboards. An extensive program of restoration was carried out on the Hyde Hall Covered Bridge beginning in 1967. The present abutments of poured concrete faced with fieldstone were installed at that time. Repair sections were spliced and bolted to the three vertical timber posts at the southeastern end of the web. The shingled roof, exterior weatherboard sheathing, and floor planks were replaced with materials matched to those used on the original bridge.