During Theodore Burr and Jonathan Baldwin’s trek in 1792-1793 from western New England to Oxford NY, they arrived via a ferry on the west bank of the Hudson River at a place called Catskill (or Kaatskill).
While Burr and Baldwin may have disembarked at a place not too far from the junction of the mighty Hudson River and the Kaatskill Creek, a 46-mile southward flowing tributary of the Hudson, with its scattering of buildings, it is possible the ferry continued to carry them upstream to a settlement then called Madison, which today is the hamlet of Leeds.
The creek was navigable for medium draft vessels up to the falls at Madison where historically it had been possible to ford the creek and where later a remarkable limestone bridge was constructed between 1760 and 1792.
Jonathan Palmer, Greene County Historian, has correctly clarified that the woodcut above does not show the “Town” viewed from across the Hudson River at the mouth of the
creek, but instead is a view from the opposite bank of Catskill Creek at the early site of the current town, a distance upriver from the Hudson.
From where they left the ferry at whatever location, Burr and Baldwin, like other Yankee migrants taking this route, then traveled overland along the banks of streams and climbed over the rugged portions of the northern Kaatskill Mountains before reaching Wattle’s Ferry on the east bank of the Upper Susquehanna River.
For the most part, their route was essentially more of a wilderness footpath path than a primitive roadway, a decade before it was to be improved as the Susquehanna Turnpike. Some early chronicles mention that travelers followed trails that were crudely marked only by notched blazes on trees.
Along the route, they crossed many streams, large and small, in order to thread through the deep valleys from one major watershed to another. Some mountain streams may have been bridged with simple kingpost structures utilizing easily available timbers, a later one pictured here spanning a Kaaterskill Creek gorge at Catskill Clove, NY.
While it is reasonable to think that Burr’s mind conjured up the need for bridges in 1792-1793, he was not at that time thinking of bridges as he traveled into Central New York. Indeed, his first known bridges were only constructed in 1800 at Oxford and Esperance. (Read about them here and here).
Early Catskill Bridge Building
In the first issue of the Catskill Packet newspaper of August 6, 1792 — months before Burr and Baldwin first passed through Catskill — there was a short report of the completion on July 26 of “a bridge over Catskill Creek, about five miles from this Landing, on the great road to the back settlements.”
Though it was boasted that the crossing was “inferior to none in the state” in terms of its size (magnitude) and design (elegance), it was clearly a noteworthy addition to the “great road to the back settlements.” Subsequent newspaper notices clearly stated that the bridge was supported by monies collected from subscribers, many of whom required reminders of their delinquency.
Another “new Catskill Bridge,” this one farther upstream, was announced in April 1793 with notice that “agents were ready to contract… for timber, day labour, or team work” without specifying the location. Later postings state the location was at Woodstock, likely at the site of the falls and dam north in today’s Town of Cairo where over time replacement metal bridges were erected.
Among the most prominent leaders of early Catskill bridge building was Martin G. Schuneman. Schuneman was the son of a clergyman, a mill and shop owner, Catskill’s Town Supervisor in 1797, 1799, and 1802, a member of New York State Assembly, and then a United States Representative from New York.
As an entrepreneur, Schuneman posted lengthy advertisements throughout 1794 about his inn/tavern/store at a “new bridge” four miles west of Catskill Landing. The location was noted as being at the junction of “the main road leading from said Landing to the Susquehanna, and also on the post road leading from Albany to Kingston.”
The initial ads for the most part focused on the needs of “travellers and teamsters with a full supply of tavern-stores,” but by January 1795, Schuneman advertised everything from alcoholic beverages, spices, and window glass. He also included “Cash given for all kinds of Grain” as an inducement for trade with local farmers.
With these early bridges serving necessities for local residents and the needs of travelers, the cluster of dwellings and shops at the mouth of Catskill Creek underwent a transformation during the decade between 1792 and 1802 that help us understand better the infrastructure challenges faced by the community at Catskill.
According to an analysis by the newspaper Western Constellation dated February 16, 1801:
“In the year 1792, the village contained but 10 buildings — a coasting sloop of 50 or 60 tons… was then the only vessel owned at this place… more than sufficient to transport to New York, all the produce that was bro’t to market….
“[Now, 1801] Catskill Landing contains one hundred fifty-six buildings — two ships and one schooner engaged in foreign trade, are owned here, besides eight coasting sloops, of from 70 to 100 tons burthen, which are constantly employed in transporting the produce of the country to New York…. The prospect for 1801 is proportionally much greater . . . Upwards EIGHT HUNDRED LOADED SLEIGHS entered the village on that day, by the great western road.”
With the increasing commercial prominence of Catskill and growing land transport of grain and other goods from the hinterland to the river landing (as depicted on the remarkably accurate 1798 map by John Cantine below) it is not surprising that thoughts were turning to improving local connections via roads and bridges. Bridge building certainly was an essential component of roadbuilding, fueled not only by local efforts but also more expansive state initiatives.
Susquehanna – Catskill Turnpike
The Legislature authorized the Susquehanna Turnpike Company on April 1, 1800 with a planned route running from the hamlet of Salisbury along the western border of the state of Connecticut to Wattle’s Ferry along the Susquehanna River was planned to pass through the node at Catskill.
The April 1 chartering date was within a week after Greene County itself was created on March 25 out of neighboring portions of Albany and Ulster County. As with many early roads, the common name differed depending which was the terminus and the direction of travel – Catskill Turnpike or Susquehanna Turnpike.
This plan set in motion the desire to fulfill the opening of an improved route between the two great waterways of the Hudson and the Susquehanna that earlier had been a mere track. The section of the Susquehanna Turnpike east of the Hudson River was spun off as the Ancram Turnpike in March 1804.
Just a year after the Legislature authorized the Susquehanna Turnpike Company, it incorporated the Catskill Bridge Company on April 4, 1801 for erecting a Bridge across the Catskill Creek at the village of Catskill.
While Theodore Burr would have learned of this authorization through notices in newspapers available to him that listed legislative news, it is likely that he also would have been informed of the opportunity by those who knew that he constructed a timber bridge over Schoharie Creek at Esperance in 1800.
Just sixty miles apart, travel on horseback between Esperance on north-flowing Schoharie Creek and Catskill on south-flowing Catskill Creek was relatively easy at the time. Portions of this route Burr knew well since it followed his original path from Connecticut to Oxford in New York in 1792-1793.
The Catskill Draw Bridge
The April 1801 State Legislature authorization for the Catskill Bridge Company made clear the nature of the timber bridge that would have interested Burr. The proposed location near a former fording site linking two sections of the expanding village of Catskill was stated precisely:
“A bridge over the Catskill creek at or near the place where the road from Kingston intersects said creek near the red store built by Jacob Bogardus on the west side of said creek, to the road on the east side of said creek leading to the house occupied by Terence Donnally, or at a place betwixt the one above described and a place situate [sic] twenty rods above the sloop navigation of the said creek.”
This bridge site resulted in the designation “Bridge Street” that led to the crossing, a name that remains today with the latest of three successor bridges.
To guarantee income for the company, it was unlawful for “persons to erect any bridge or establish any ferry or ferries across said creek within half a mile up the said creek or one mile down the said creek from the place where the bridge aforesaid shall be erected and built by the said company, neither shall it be lawful for any person or persons to cross the said creek after the aforesaid bridge is completed, within the distance above mentioned without paying to the corporation for their use, the toll established by law, but it shall and may be lawful for any person or persons to pass and repass with his or their own boat or on the ice without being subjected to such toll.”
Further, the bridge had to be completed by November 1, 1804.
The legislation called for a generic bridge without any mention of how bids were to be solicited: “at least twenty feet wide and be secured with plank not less than three inches thick the sides of said bridge to be secured with good substantial railings, and to be constructed with a draw to open at least thirty feet so as to conveniently admit masted vessels to pass and repass said bridge, which said passage shall be a free open highway, and shall be freely used without toll or reward.”
No information has been located concerning the source of timbers or the actual construction work, gaps that need to be filled by continued search for documents.
Although no contract signed by Burr has been located for this 1802 Catskill Creek bridge that would confirm he was the builder, an article in Catskill’s Western Constellation, the successor to Catskill Packet, heralded the near completion of the bridge on September 7, 1802 naming Theodore Burr as “the architect” who was present when the bridge was opened to traffic:
“The new draw-bridge over the Catskill Creek, at the village of Catskill, is so far complete as to become passable. This elegant and highly useful structure extends about five hundred and fifty feet in length, and is of sufficient height to give it a noble appearance — The strength and elegant simplicity of the work is highly applauded by every gentleman acquainted with architecture who has seen it — On the 7th inst. That being the day on which it became passable, the gentlemen and ladies of the village assembled and crossed it in procession, preceded by music — On their return they were met by Mr. Burr, the architect, attended by his workmen, with the implements of their calling.”
This portion of the news article was reprinted widely in newspapers in New York City and in New England, extracting the initial part of the Western Constellation article but failing to carry an additional paragraph that was below the original announcement, a tribute to Theodore Burr’s “skill, perseverance, and fidelity in the science which you profess… And we sincerely wish that your performance here may redound no less to the reputation of the Architect than to the ornament of our village and the public convenience.”
This addendum, which appeared appropriately in the Albany Gazette [Catskill was in Albany County preceding the formation of Greene County in 1800], no doubt accentuated Burr’s reputation as he began seeking work in the Mohawk and Hudson valleys.
Fragmentary reports of repairs due to ice floes and floods (1804, 1818, 1869, 1870,1873, 1875, 1880, among many others) as well as depictions (1840, 1854) provide some retrospective answers to what Burr actually constructed, supporting details found in the 1801 legislative act. It is quite certain that Burr erected his twenty-foot-wide Catskill Bridge supported by timber trestles, which he had employed with his bridges at Oxford and Esperance in 1800.
Viewed in terms of Burr’s professional development, the Catskill Bridge was an interlude, a cautious pause, before he embarked on highly experimental arch-supported bridges, new designs that began to emerge in 1803, first at Schenectady and Canajoharie over the Mohawk River, then at Lansingburgh-Waterford over the Hudson River in New York, and between Trenton NJ and Morrisville PA over the Delaware River.
As a trestle bridge with a draw, the deck structure necessarily would have been erected close to the observed level of the stream during construction. Whether Burr or those advising him would have considered potential destruction due to fluctuating seasonal water cannot be determined.
In any case, Burr as a bridgebuilder would have known that trestle bridges, while vulnerable, usually could be rebuilt once members were salvaged after being swept away. With longstanding timber bridges even to the present, the periodic raising of abutments and piers that would lift a bridge deck from perilous conditions is well documented.
An initial question about Burr’s 1802 bridge centers around the nature of the draw, his only design with such an opening. Highlighted in all announcements, a drawbridge was a necessity in Catskill Creek where tall masted sloops needed to continue upstream.
The nature of the draw is complicated by the fact that the term “draw” implies several alternative movable forms known at that time, including: 1) a lifting bridge, technically called a bascule bridge, with a single or double leaf raised using a counterweight for the upward swing with sufficient width allowing passage of tall-masted boats; and 2) a swinging/rotating/turning/pivoting bridge with a deck that could be shifted horizontally 90 degrees around a vertical axis to provide an opening in the deck.
When in a closed position, this swinging type of bridge maintained an uninterrupted road surface. When rotated to allow boat traffic to cross the span, road traffic would be halted. Our suspicion that Burr created a swinging drawbridge was not resolved until an 1854 image surfaced showing this type. While incomplete and disconnected, later news reports and images provide pieces of information that underscore how timber bridges change over their decades-long lifespan.
Given the Catskill Bridge survived nearly eighty years from 1802 through 1881, it is certain that interventions altered Burr’s original structure because of responses to the impacts of flood and ice. Damage to the timber structure, often without warning, rendered vehicular and ship passage impossible, thus forcing emergency structural modifications. Some of these are mentioned below.
The pride of Catskill in late 1802 was the new drawbridge, so much of a curiosity that people came miles to see it after it was opened with great ceremony as folks considered its utility.
“Not to exceed” tolls were specified in the legislative act in great detail, including the following: foot passengers, three cents; every man and horse six cents; four wheeled pleasure carriage drawn by two horses twenty five cents, if drawn by four horses thirty one cents; wagon and two horses nineteen cents, if drawn by four horses twenty five cents; each ox cart and two oxen nineteen cents; every horse jack or mule four cents; every cow or other neat cattle two cents; and every sheep hog or calf one cent.
Destruction & Rebirth
In July 1804, after an especially brutal winter and unruly spring freshets, the Catskill Bridge Company placed ads in Catskill newspapers “for building piers at the foot of two of the trestles of said bridge.” The transformation from timber trestles to piled stone piers within two years would not have been unprecedented due to the vulnerability of wood because of intense weather.
No record of changes for the following decade could be located. However, in March 1818, “late rains having raised the stream in this vicinity, to a considerable height the ice in the Catskill broke up… with such force [that]… The west end of the Catskill bridge was carried off, and it is now impassable.”
Whether this necessitated the replacement or heightening of a pier is not certain, but replacement of the beams supporting the deck likely were made with rebuilding.
An 1840 engraved image, the earliest we’ve located showing a bridge, of the now prosperous Town of Catskill unfortunately did not show clearly either the under structure of the bridge or even that it included a drawbridge.
This stylized rendering was compiled by someone who knew little about bridge structure or didn’t see it as important. Some indeed may think it is a covered bridge, which were common by the 1840s, but Burr’s Catskill Bridge never had a roof and siding.
On the other hand, fourteen years later, in 1854, a large format print 38″ wide x 24″ tall of Catskill in the collection of the Vedder Library of the Greene County Historical Society revealed much information about the bridge at that time, clearly showing modifications of Burr’s original bridge.
- the bridge had railings along the sides as specified in the authorization of the Catskill Bridge Company.
- there were at least five spans (an additional one may have been blocked by trees), two abutments, and three visible stone piers.
- the superstructure rests on stone piers, which likely were added after Burr’s original wooden trestles failed and traffic increased.
- thus, the deck as depicted here was much higher than would have been the case when the bridge was supported by wooden trestles in 1802.
- as a result of the higher piers and raised deck, the shoreside approaches to the bridge required a steep angled incline to reach the level deck.
- the operational drawspan is a swinging /rotating deck that rested on a square wooden cribbing-like frame set on a stone base. This pivoting span could be rotated horizontally 90 degrees. around a vertical axis, likely manually operated, to permit tall masted ships to pass.
- short masted sailboats, as shown, could pass beneath the deck of the bridge.
As depicted, one lingering question concerns whether any structural support was added to strengthen the long timber beams resting on the stone piers. If the full length of the bridge was more than 500 feet, then at least some of the logs would have had to be as long as 100 feet.
Old growth hardwood and softwood trees surpassing that length likely were available in the forests of the mountain slopes when Burr erected the bridge in 1802 that could be cut, slid down to the creek, then floated to the building site for the bridge where there likely was a sawmill where the logs could be rough sawed or hand-hewn. Spans exceeding 100 feet in length that were not unsupported would certainly sag pretty quickly.
An Act was passed in the New York Legislature on April 14, 1866 authorizing the Town of Catskill to borrow $75,000 for the purchase of the 64-year-old timber bridge from the Catskill Bridge Company. Carrying out this authorization involved several steps, including electors in the town being given a choice of voting for “A free bridge and a loan” or “Against a free bridge and a loan.” If passed, then the town was authorized to sell bonds to obtain title to the toll bridge, franchises, associated “appurtances” and to eliminate tolls.
Although details of the slow pace of carrying this out are scanty, the History of Greene County states “no action had been taken until 1870.” This delay may have resulted from the fact that the town “erected in 1869 and 1870, a substantial arch bridge of iron, at a point measured half mile north of the drawbridge… in accordance with an act of [May 11] 1869, allowing supervisors to provide for the erection of bridges.”
Although newspapers had only spotty weather-related incidents impacting the timber bridge after 1866, a loss of life was reported in May 1869 that occurred when an “entire span of the Catskill Bridge gave way… with an avalanche of broken timbers.” An early spring freshet struck the Catskill Creek in 1870: “having raised the stream… to a considerable height, the ice in the Catskill broke up… and with such force as to occasion considerable injury. The west end of the Catskill bridge was carried off, and is now impassable.”
With the purchase of the wooden Catskill Bridge in 1870, the Town of Catskill eliminated tolls, thus making passage free. With ownership of what was then being called “the old bridge,” newspapers turned to speculating about the need for a “new bridge.”
In 1874, three large bridges, which were not identified, were swept away along Catskill Creek as part of a flood impacting the Hudson River and neighboring New England, according to Troy Daily Times reports of June 13 and 14.
Calls for a new Catskill Bridge accelerated in mid-1875 because of the disastrous impact of ice as it pushed downstream against the old bridge. Captured in a stereograph paired image labeled “Ice gorge in the Catskill Creek above the ‘Old Bridge’ Apr 1st 1875” that is in the collection of the Library of Congress, this frame revealed the sheer destructive power of upwelling blocks of ice at a location that appeared to be adjacent to the swing bridge.
How many times in the preceding seven decades this happened is not known. This photo shows angled buttresses supporting a component that suggests there was an enclosed set of trusses inside, at least in this area of the bridge. This is technically called a boxed pony truss. Unfortunately, no images of the rest of the bridge have been found that would substantiate whether boxed pony trusses were on other spans.
On May 13, 1881, the New York State Legislature authorized the voters in the Town of Catskill “to appropriate such sum of money as they shall deem necessary, not to exceed twenty-five thousand dollars, for the purpose of rebuilding a bridge across the Catskill creek in the village of Catskill, at or near the location of the bridge now standing (and known as the old wooden bridge) with iron.”
The Catskill Recorder reported on April 22 “The present old bridge is in a delicate condition, one span having had an attack of spinal meningitis, last week, and required shoring up with timbers. Probably at the present time the conditions are the most favorable for the work. If the bridge is built, Bridge street to Main street should be widened.”
Thirteen Greene County Supervisors voted on August 1, 1881 that the bridge “with stone piers and abutments” was to be erected with a draw “to prevent any impeding of the navigation of the Catskill Creek as then used.” A special town meeting was held on August 12 for the purpose of appropriating bonds worth $25,000 for this purpose.
Moving quickly, the Catskill Commissioner of Highways, Wm. Martin condemned the “old Wooden bridge” with public notices beginning on September 9 as “unsafe and dangerous. All persons crossing said bridge do so at their own risk and peril.”
In mid-September 1881, The Catskill Recorder breathlessly reported that “The work of demolishing the old bridge is proceeding rapidly” and “The new bridge is expected to be ready by December 1.” A “large gang” working on the demolition removed first the eastern abutment and much of the simple superstructure.
Others prepared the cribs for the new piers. “The pivot pier for the new swing bridge will be just West of the old draw bridge; the second pier of the new bridge will be about midway between the second and third piers of the old bridge.” Two ferries and a toll foot bridge initially serviced those needing to cross on foot, on horseback, or with carriages or wagons.
Then just a week later it was admitted that “the bridge is being slowly broken up, the work being more difficult than expected with the “first, second, fourth, and Western spans . . . down and only the frame-work of the others . . . left.” From October to the end of the year, there were fewer news reports as locals were able to observe the pace of demolition of the old and building of the new without relying on print media.
Whatever comments were mentioned in “Odds and Ends” section of The Catskill Recorder related to an increased number of perceived faults with the new iron bridge that, while not declared completed, had traffic across it nonetheless. Comments began as brief observations that increasingly became highly charged criticisms not only of the slow pace of work, shoddy construction, the likely need to increase the height of the piers, the excessive length of the abutments even as the superstructure was well on its way to completion.
Two examples will suffice:
- “Ex-Supervisor Austin, who is probably our best-informed man in the matter of floods in the Catskill Creek thinks the iron bridge shold [sic] be raised about two feet to get it beyond the possible danger of being carried away. The large cribs and piers of the West Shore RR bridge just below, are obstructions that will cause the water to rise higher in
heavy freshets. On several occasions heretofore the water has been within three feet of the iron bridge, and with all the new bridge piers just below to hold it back the water will rise higher hereafter.” (January 13, 1882) - “I would like… to call attention to that dangerous obstruction, the Western abutment. Before it was commenced, a remonstrance, signed by about thirty property-owners on each side of the creek, was presented to the commissioners, praying them to change their plans and not to build the abutment out into the creek; but it failed to influence ‘the management.’ The honest opinion of any civil engineer, or even average common-sense mechanic, would be, and is, that it is a very effective dam, and in the event of an extraordinary or even ordinary ice freshet, will cause great damage to property-owners along the creek. The heavy shore ice has now no escape….” (February 3, 1882)
Finally, seven months after the iron bridge’s scheduled completion date of December 1, 1881, it was “thrown open to travel on the morning of the 4 th of July [1882] . . . there was no formal opening no ‘doin’s’ of any description…. When the old bridge was opened, however, it was done with considerable ceremony.”
This was followed in the column with the full text reported in the Western Constellation dated in September 12, 1802 presented earlier in this essay.
Railroads Arrive
The drama accompanying the demolition of the 1802 Burr wooden bridge and its replacement by a modern iron bridge that included a draw only hinted at the broader transformation of the transport geography at Catskill. Once essentially a river port and transit stop for travelers heading into interior New York, Catskill had now become a principal node for tourists flocking to the Catskill Mountains in search of clean air.
Excursion boats were first, then railroads brought visitors in large numbers from the city of New York and surrounding areas. Two major bridges were added to the Catskill landscape just as what remained of the bridge erected by Theodore Burr was being removed and replaced with a standard iron bridge.
Given the passage of eighty years and the documented alterations mentioned earlier in this essay, it is unlikely that much of Burr’s original 1802 structure was still present. The most dramatic of the new structures was the high bridge over the Catskill Creek not far from the earlier bridges.
An engineering marvel, this section of the West Shore Railroad of the New York Central that ran on the west bank of the Hudson River from Weehawken, NJ opposite New York City north to Albany and then west to Buffalo. It was proportioned to carry the weight of fully loaded trains and its own heavy structure, the total weight being 2,693,500 pounds with its eight double two-track spans. Passenger service continued until 1959.
This 1884 depiction of the high West Shore Railroad bridge, published in Scientific American, is a view looking downstream with the iron bridge at Catskill in sight.
Another shorter and smaller line called the Catskill Mountain Railway was a three-foot narrow-gauge line 15.73 miles long that ran from Catskill to Palenville built in 1881 and 1882.
Running only seasonally to carry passengers to stops servicing hotels and boarding houses in the Catskill Mountains, during the early years passengers then took a stage coach for an hour or so to reach a destination. This short line provided connections to the West Shore Railroad main line as well as to Hudson River boats at Catskill Landing.
These two lines and the replacement of the bascule bridge on the site of Burr’s timber bridge in in 1930 represented significant breaks with the landscape that Theodore Burr encountered when he built his wooden bridge there in 1802.
In the 1950s as the industrial and commercial transformation of Catskill Creek took place, the draw feature of the bridge was permanently changed in the closed position.
Today, instead of a drawbridge that was necessary because of the passage of tall masted schooners, Catskill Creek is lined with docks for small pleasure boats.
Ronald G. Knapp and Terry E. Miller are the authors of Theodore Burr and the Bridging of Early America: The Man, Fellow Bridge Builders, and Their Forgotten Timber Spans (2023).
The assistance of Heather Bizanos, Librarian, The Vedder Research Library, which holds the archives and special collections of the Greene County Historical Society, is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks also to Jonathan Palmer, Greene County Historian, for his suggestions. The photographer A. Chester Ong substantially enhanced the excerpt from the faded 1798 Cantine map.
This essay is sponsored by the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges. It’s part of a series of essays about covered bridges in New York State – you can read them all here.
Illustrations, from above: “Sketch of the Town of Kaats’-Kill, Hudson’s River” from New York Magazine, or Literary Repository, (September 1797), vol. 2; “Bridge in Catskill Clove” in William C. Bryant and Oliver B. Bunce, Picturesque America: Or, the Land We Live In, 1872; Advertisement for Catskill Landing goods for sale in the Catskill Packet appearing January and March 1795; “Map of the Town of Catskill, Greene County,” Jno. J. Cantine, 1798 (New York State Archives); Annotated map (Vedder Research Library, Greene County Historical Society); Address to Mr. Burr, Western Constellation, September, 1802; detail of “Northwestern View of Catskill,” 1840 engraving and full image (Vedder Research Library, Greene County Historical Society); 1854 print showing Catskill’s bridge (Vedder Research Library, Greene County Historical Society); “Ice gorge in the Catskill Creek above the ‘Old Bridge’” (Library of Congress); Catskill Bridge Notice, 1881; Catskill Iron Bridge postcard (courtesy Ronald G. Knapp); and West Shore Railroad Bridge engraving, Scientific American, April 26, 1884.
Source link
