Longley Covered Bridge, Montgomery Vermont
- Categories:
- Vermont
- Covered Bridges
- Town Lattice Truss
The Longley Covered Bridge crosses the Trout River northwest of Montgomery village. Five other covered wood bridges remain in the town of Montgomery, giving it the highest concentration of covered bridges by town in Vermont. Two brothers, Sheldon and Savannah Jewett of Montgomery, built all six of the bridges; they completed the Longley Bridge in 1863, the oldest among their bridges whose dates are known. 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 Longley 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 a number of shorter timbers tie-bolted together. At the east end of the bridge, diagonal steel inferior braces have been placed to Support both the segmented stringers and the bottom chord of the north truss from the footing of the abutment.
The Longley Bridge is 84.5 feet long overall and 19.5 feet wide; it has a 16-foot roadway. The wood floor, which consists of planks laid on edge and parallel to the trusses, begins four feet inside each portal; the approaches are concrete. The east abutment has been rebuilt with concrete; the west abutment remains in its original condition, built of irregular stone blocks laid dry.
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 (painted white at the west portal) 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 sheathed with flush boards hung vertically and painted white. The portal openings have diagonal upper corners, which correspond to the line of the interior struts. The shallow-pitch gable roof is covered with standing seam metal sheeting.
East portal (1974)
