Although there are gaps in the available historical record concerning Theodore Burr’s 1800 bridge spanning Schoharie Creek at Esperance, there are enough tantalizing facts to encourage continuing research for documents, including drawings.
Our first evidence that Burr had constructed a timber bridge at Esperance emerged serendipitously while researching Burr’s venturing to erect a bridge across the Potomac River in 1806 far from New York State where he was living and working.
The clue was a comment made by the New York congressman Killian K. Van Rensselaer in Washington D.C. in an 1807 Senate document in which he recommended Burr for a contract to build a bridge across the Potomac River.
Killian Killian Van Rensselaer (1763–1845) was from Lansingburgh in Rensselaer County, NY, near the eastern end of Burr’s Union Bridge that had been erected in 1804 between it and the village of Waterford on the west side of the Hudson River.
In Washington, Van Rensselaer was well-connected, having served as a Federalist Party representative for five sessions of Congress from 1801 to 1811.
He attested that he was “acquainted with Mr. Burr’s general character, as a bridge builder, in the state of New York, he was very solicitous to obtain the contract, for erecting a bridge over the Potomac, last session of Congress, and requested my favorable interposition, to aid him in getting it.”
Van Rensselaer affirmed that Burr guaranteed that a trestle or post/beam bridge could be built since Burr had extensive experience dealing with ice flows in New York that exceeded those along the Potomac, and that “he would undertake it for one hundred thousand dollars, and make a good job of it.”
Van Rensselaer’s recommendation mentioned that Burr had earlier built a bridge over Schoharie Creek in New York State. Documentary research in the New York State Archives revealed that the bridge Van Rensselaer was referencing was to be a replacement for one mentioned in the March 15, 1799 Charter for First Company of the Great Western Turnpike Road (Albany to Cherry Valley more or less today’s Route 20), stating:
“Whereas the bridge over the Schoharie-kill on the state-road, was, by reason of the force of the water and ice last spring destroyed . . . Be it enacted . . . the said president and directors are hereby empowered to commence their operations by making a good and sufficient bridge over
the Schoharie-kill, at or near the place where the former bridge on said state-road stood.”
What followed in this charter was authorization “to erect a gate and turnpike upon and across such bridge; and to ask, demand, and receive from all and every person and persons who shall cross said bridge, the same tolls and duties hereinafter granted to the said corporation for every ten miles of said road.” Toll rates were stated clearly and the bridge was to be completed within two years.
A Public Notice advertisement was reprinted in November and December 1799 in the Albany Gazette by the Directors of the First Company of the Great Western Turnpike Road.
The Public Notice sought “PROPOSALS (sealed) . . . at any time previous to the 1st day of January, next [1800], for erecting a BRIDGE across the Schoharie-Creek at the place at which the State-bridge formerly stood, by the first day of November 1800 . . . and warranted to stand for at least the term of two years from completion.” It was added that “Timber, boards, and stone can be procured near the place.”
Charles R. Webster, Director of the Western Turnpike Company, announced at a meeting of the company “at the New Bridge over the Schoharie Creek on the 4d of November” in the Albany Gazette.
Further, an extract of a letter to the Directors “from a Gentleman in Princeton” dated December 17, 1800 printed in the Albany Gazette, reproduced below, reported “not much danger of BURR’S BRIDGE… notwithstanding the ice, whole trees and rubbish, which came against it in large quantities, it is not in the least injured.”
This comment subsequently appeared two weeks later in a news article on January 1, 1801 in the Otsego Herald in Cooperstown, NY, less than 50 miles from Burr’s home in Oxford, NY where he constructed his first bridge. How this information spread so widely needs further corroborating research.
Although this statement confirms Burr’s involvement in an early Esperance bridge, neither a contract nor a drawing has yet surfaced. As a result, there is not clarity either on Burr’s design for the structure in terms of masonry and carpentry nor the financial arrangements with Burr and others.
On the other hand, there are ledger entries for the First Company of the Western Turnpike Company with handwritten entries signed by Theodore Burr indicating he transferred 22 shares of stock on August 15, 1802 (shown below), 30 shares on April 18, 1809, and 26 shares on April 18. 1809.
There is no record that he purchased these shares; thus, they were likely his on the basis of contract details regarding payment that must have included a combination of stock and cash, a pattern that has been seen with other of his contracts.
While Burr’s 1800 Esperance Bridge was likely either a relatively simple post and beam bridge or possibly a common trestle bridge like his first at Oxford, this can only be confirmed with a contract and/or drawing. Such bridges were not covered with a roof or siding since there was no
upper structure to be protected.
Burr’s involvement with bridgebuilding at Esperance and elsewhere along Schoharie Creek clearly involved the full decade from 1800 to 1812. Burr’s 1800 bridge at this location was subsequently replaced by an imaginative underdeck arch design by Theodore Burr that lasted until 1930 with substantial photographic documentation.
The opening of this second Burr bridge at Esperance on January 1, 1812 revealed a masterful design by Theodore Burr that was later employed in his longer bridges crossing the Susquehanna River at Northumberland and Harrisburg in Pennsylvania.
The full story of this later Burr bridge at Esperance was the subject of an earlier New York Almanack article.
There is further tantalizing evidence of other Schoharie Creek bridges that may have involved Theodore Burr after 1800, but further research is necessary.
One of these was commissioned in the Town of Windham in 1802 by the Schohary-Kill Bridge Company, incorporated in 1802, for “a bridge across the schoharykill… on that part of the Road Between John More in the Town of Roxbury and Danial Harris (sp?) at the foot of the Catskill Mountain in the Town of Freehold [today a hamlet in the town of Greenville].
Though we have located the enabling authorization and business records for the Schohary-Kill Bridge Company, the record is not clear who the
builder was.
Besides Schoharie Creek, Burr was also familiar with Catskill Creek that flows south into the Hudson River. Burr secured a contact in 1802 for an important bridge at Catskill, a town he knew well because of his journeys to and from Connecticut.
The design Burr created for the crossing of Catskill Creek at Catskill in 1802 was more complex than his other bridges up to then because of its length but also because it required a “draw” that was necessary to allow passage upstream by tall-masted schooners that plied up and down the Hudson River. (An essay about this bridge will appear soon in the New York Almanack).
Understanding Burr’s earliest bridges at Oxford, Esperance, and Catskill is necessary as background to understanding Burr’s ambitious bridges that followed in New York State: Canajoharie (1803); Fort Miller (1803); Lansingburg-Waterford Union (1804); Schenectady-Scotia over the Mohawk (1805 and 1808); and a new bridge at Esperance over Schoharie Creek (1811-1812).
There is yet too little known about other possible Burr bridges at Fort Plain (1806), Little Falls (1807), and Utica (Fort Schuyler, 1810) to write confidently about them.
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).
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.
Sources and Illustrations: “New Bridge over Schoharie Creek,” Dec. 17, 1800, Albany Gazette; and Theodore Burr indicating he transferred 22 shares of stock on August 15, 1802.
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