Comstock Covered Bridge, Montgomery Vermont
- Categories:
- Vermont
- Covered Bridges
- Town Lattice Truss
The Comstock Covered Bridge crosses the Trout River at the west edge of Montgomery village. Five other covered wood bridges remain in the town of Montgomery, giving it the highest concentration of covered bridges by a town in Vermont. Two brothers, Sheldon and Savannah Jewett of Montgomery, built all six of the bridges; they completed the Comstock Bridge in 1883. The Jewetts used Town lattice trusses in all of the bridges, which also share a common architectural design and similar dimensions except for length.
Together with another bridge constructed by the Jewett brothers across the Trout River in the adjoining town of Enosburg, the Montgomery bridges 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 Jewetts 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 Comstock Covered Bridge consists of a single-span supported by two flanking timber Town lattice trusses. Two longitudinal segmented stringers have been added to the underside of the deck beams for reinforcement; each stringer comprises shorter timbers tie-bolted together.
The structure rests on abutments built originally of irregular stone laid dry. The short west abutment, which stands on a prominent outcrop of bedrock, has been mortared together and capped with concrete. The east abutment has been faced with concrete.
The Comstock Bridge is 69 feet long overall and 19.5 feet wide, and has a 16-foot roadway. The wood floor, which consists of planks laid on the edge and parallel to the trusses, begins four feet inside each portal; the approaches are concrete.
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. Near the west end of the north wall, a strip opening provides visibility of the sharp curve in the road at that end of the bridge.
The gable ends are sheathed with flush boards hung vertically and painted white. The portal openings have diagonal upper corners. The shallow-pitch gable roof is covered with standing seam metal sheeting painted red.
East portal (1974)
