Hopkins Covered Bridge, Enosburg Vermont
- Categories:
- Vermont
- Covered Bridges
- Town Lattice Truss
The Hopkins Covered Bridge crosses the Trout River northwest of Montgomery village just inside the boundary of Enosburg township, the only covered wood bridge remaining in that town. Two brothers, Sheldon and Savannah Jewett of Montgomery, built the Hopkins Bridge in 1875. Upstream of the Hopkins Bridge in the same watershed and within the town of Montgomery are six other covered bridges also built by the Jewett brothers. The Jewetts used Town lattice trusses in all of the seven bridges. The bridges also share common architectural design and similar dimensions except for length (the Hopkins Bridge is the longest at 91 feet).
Together the seven bridges in Enosburg and Montgomery constitute the most extensive surviving record of the work of any individual covered bridge builders who practiced their trade in Vermont. The complete inventory of bridges built by the Jewett brothers is unknown; Richard Sanders Allen writes that they built bridges "for more than thirty years." The brothers prepared the timber for their bridges at their own mill, which stood in the West Hill District of Montgomery near one of the remaining bridges.
The covered bridges of Vermont are among its most cherished and symbolic historic resources. About one hundred of the bridges still stand in the state, the highest concentration by area of covered bridges in the United States.
Bridge Description
The Hopkins Covered Bridge consists of a single span supported hy two flanking timber Town lattice trusses. During repairs to the bridge, two steel beams were cantilevered outward from the west abutment to support the bottom chords. The structure rests on abutments built of irregular stone slabs laid dry; the west abutment has been capped with concrete.
The Hopkins Bridge is 91 feet long overall and 19.5 feet wide, and has a 16-foot roadway. The wood floor consists of planks laid flat and perpendicular to the trusses, overlaid with two transverse strips of planks for driving surfaces. The floor begins 6.5 feet inside the west portal; the approach is gravel.
On the exterior, the heavy planks pegged together diagonally to form the trusses (and side walls) of the bridge are sheathed with unpainted flush boards hung vertically. Similar siding protects the ends of the trusses immediately inside the portals The siding stops short of the eaves to leave strip openings along the tops of the walls.
The gable ends are also sheathed with unpainted flush boards hung vertically. The portal openings have diagonal upper corners which correspond to the interior struts. The medium-pitch gable roof is covered with standing seam metal sheeting.
South elevation (1974)
