Harshman Covered Bridge, Fairhaven Ohio

Date added: November 16, 2023 Categories: Ohio Bridges Covered Bridges Childs Truss

The Harshman Covered Bridge was built in 1894 by Evrett S. Sherman who came to Preble County, Ohio in the wake of the great storm of 1886. Mr. Sherman came here from Delaware County, Ohio, where he had lived and worked as a bridge builder since coming to Ohio after the Civil War. Like Horace Childs who patented the Childs truss, Mr. Sherman was a native of New Hampshire, which may account for his use of this hitherto little-known truss type. Mr. Sherman first built a Childs truss bridge in Delaware County, Ohio, and is still standing today. Mr. Sherman is said to have taken a model of the Childs truss bridge with him to meet with the Preble County officials and they were so impressed that they awarded him several contracts immediately to rebuild the storm-wrecked bridges. That he was still building covered wooden bridges into the 1890s when the popularity of such bridges was definitely on the wane, is testimony to how highly the county officials thought of Mr. Sherman and his work.

The Harshman Bridge is one of only seven surviving Childs Truss covered bridges in the United States.

The Harshman Bridge is named for John Harshman who owned the farm adjoining the bridge site on the west. This is the first bridge on this site as the "old" road looped around the creek to the west to avoid stream crossings. Mr. Harshman requested that the county reroute the road and build it on the half-section line and build a bridge over the creek, thus eliminating the division of his farm by the old road. The county built the road and bridge in answer to this request. This has always been an important north-south road in this area and is still heavily traveled by people coming north from Fairhaven. Fairhaven was formerly an important trading center. A sawmill was located along the creek immediately above the bridge and 1¼ miles south of the bridge was the large Stony Point Stone Quarry, source of the blue limestone for the bridge abutments. It was also the source of the stone used by Christian Wair in building the retaining wall at the northeast corner of the bridge in 1895. The pine lumber used in the trusses of the bridge came from the firm of Cobb and Mitchell, Cadillac, Michigan.

The Indians called this creek Tallewanda and it was at this point in the creek valley that the last Indians made camp in Preble County. The Delawares camped here until 1815. They used the flat top of a large granite glacial boulder on which to crush and grind their grain. This boulder is located not far south of the covered bridge.

The Harshman Covered Bridge is the longest such span in Preble County and is very scenic and photogenic. One accompanying photo shows the bridge from the northeast with the span reflected in the waters of Four Mile Creek. This is but another outstanding example of the bridge-building skills of E. S. Sherman and the maintenance skills of the Preble County Engineer's Department.

Bridge Description

The Harshman Covered Bridge is a one-span wooden truss covered bridge spanning Four Mile Creek on the Concord-Fairhaven Road four miles north of Fairhaven in Dixon Township section 16, Preble County, Ohio. This fine old span has vertical, high-boarded siding, a metal roof, cut-stone abutments and projected portals.

This is known as the Harshman Covered Bridge and was built in 1894 by Evrett S. Sherman on the Childs truss plan. The Childs truss was patented in 1846 by Horace Childs of Henniker, New Hampshire. Mr. Childs was a master carpenter and with his brothers, he built many Long truss covered bridges for Col. Stephan Long, a relative by marriage, who patented the long truss in 1830. We do not know why Mr. Childs never built a covered bridge on his own truss patent, but it was not until 1874 that Mr. Sherman built the first of this type in Delaware County, Ohio. The Childs truss is much like the basic multiple king- and queen-post trusses in that it uses the triangular form with the diagonals being in compression and the vertical truss pieces are the tension members. However, the important feature of the Childs truss are the iron rods which act as counter-braces, a new idea at that time. The Harshman Bridge is a 12-panel Childs truss, 109' long overall with a clear span of 95'. The overall width is 18'10" with a 15' roadway. The bridge has a vertical clearance of 12'3". The truss timbers are of white pine, with the top chords measuring 8" x 8" and the truss members measuring 7" x 7". The bottom chords are 1-3 x 12 and l-4 x 12 dowelled together. Mir. Sherman suspended his floor beams from the lower chords on iron stirrups either 3/4" or 1" and this proved to be inadequate in later years, so the county replaced these stirrups in the 1920s with 2" stock. At the same time, most of the floor beams in the Preble County's Sherman-built covered bridges were replaced with oak beams. During World War II, when truck traffic became heavier, the county doubled the number of these floor beams in each bridge, using some new oak beams and some that had been salvaged from bridges that had been replaced. The original oak floor of the Harshman Bridge was turned over when it became worn, and later on, runways of oak planks were added for further protection of the floor. The abutments are of blue limestone laid in lime and sand mortar. In the 1950s and 1960s, this mortar was "pointed-up" where necessary in all the Preble County covered bridges by using air-emplaced sand-cement. The roof on the Harshman Bridge was originally of red cedar, which was probably replaced with another of the same type before World War II according to Seth S. Schlotterbeck, former Preble County Maintenance Engineer. In 1961, this roof was replaced with an aluminum raised-seam roof laid right over the old wood shingles. The long retaining wall at the northeast corner of the bridge was built in 1895. A small window was cut into the east side of the bridge in the 1960s so that people would not knock off the siding in order to look out of the bridge. The original bridge specifications called for shelter panels at each portal of the bridge, but these were removed in the 1940s as they had become a haven for termites, rodents, and trash. The original specifications also called for this bridge to be painted with three coats of white lead and linseed oil. Some Preble County covered bridges were painted in 1910, but it is not known if the Harshman was one of them. It is unlikely since this was a fairly new bridge at that time. It was painted in the 1930's by the WPA and again in 1960 by the county.