Town Council Approves New Bridge for Nanaquaket
An act was passed at the May session of the Rhode Island General Assembly in 1875 “authorizing George W. Humphrey and others to erect a bridge across the strait leading into Nanaquaket Pond in Tiverton, provided, however, that the said bridge shall be constructed at a place and upon a plan to be approved by the town council.”
At a meeting of the Town Council on April 4th, 1881, the following location and specifications were approved: “To extend from Bridgeport Wharf, so called, to the wharf on the land of George W. Humphrey, the south line of the Bridge to be on a line with the southwest corner of said Bridgeport wharf and the southeast corner of the wharf of said Humphrey; said Bridge to be built of stone, the top to be eighteen feet wide, an opening of thirty feet wide covered with plank to be built in the westerly end of said bridge, the westerly abutment of said opening to be six feet from the end of the wharf of said Humphrey. The plank aforesaid to be of hard pine, and not less than three inches thick, and the whole of said structure to be built in a proper and substantial manner, and subject to the approval of the town council.” Signed by Geo. N. Durfee, Town Clerk
The contract for the construction was given to Charles E. Davis of Woods Hole and signed July 5th, 1883. Work was to commence on or about the first of August and be finished on or about the first of November of the same year. The contract was for $2,808 and the last two feet at the top of the structure was to be built by the owners who evidently figured they could build this part cheaper by their own labor.
Mr. Davis agreed to pay Mr. Anthony the sum of $24 for any rocks that he used from the ledge in his pasture near the Snell Bridge, and he also agreed to allow 40 cents per long ton for boulders and 35 cents per long ton for small stone delivered within 500 feet of the proposed work; weight of stone furnished to be determined by displacement of water by the scow upon which the stone and boulders were placed. In the final settlement, Mr Davis allowed for 714 tons at 40 cents per ton.
Furnishing these stones represented a lot of work by men and oxen, and incidentally resulted in the clearing of the fields and pastures on Nanaquaket.
Among the stone masons and laborers engaged to finish the bridge were James Sanford, John B. Hambly, William Negus, Isaac Manchester, Gideon Manchester, Frank Boyd, Andrew Schlegel, Charles Negus, Thomas H. Macomber, Conrad Seibel, Samuel Manchester, Thomas Grinnell, and Job Wordell with his stone lifting machine. Of all these men, only Charles Negus and Conrad Seibel are living today. Labor was at the rate of 15 cents per hour.
Captain Nathaniel B. Church was the largest contributor in money, and the other contributors were Miss A. B. Durfee, Mars. Mary West, Joseph D. Humphrey, and Peleg D. Humphrey. Contributions from Mrs. Alice R. Thayer and Andrew Robeson were used in constructing the road.
The sum of $420 was paid to Albert Gray and Thomas T. Gray for the south end of their wharf on the east side of the stream. There was an old oil works on this end of their wharf on the east side of the stream. There was an old oil works on this property of not much value at the time. The wharf on the west side and used as the west approach was built by George W. Humphrey and his sons at an earlier date at a cost of several hundred dollars, so the cost of the Bridge somewhat exceeded $4,000.
The completed Bridge was approved by the Town Council in March of 1884, and turned over to the Town by the builders for public use. From that time on, the expense of maintenance for the bridge and road has been born by the Town and by the State. Because of its solid construction, very little repairs have been required for the stone work. Several times the wooden span has had to be replaced.
The builders of the bridge little realized the immense amount of traffic it would be called on to serve. Their main thought was for their own convenience as a saving of several miles of travel. Laying out a public road the length of Nanaquaket also saved them the inconvenience of taking out and putting in ten or a dozen sets of bars in passing through the various fields and pastures.
The facts and figures used in this article are from the records kept at the time by Peleg D. Humphrey, who kept the accounts and was one of those most interested in the construction.
Note: The above was taken from “The Building of Nanaquaket Bridge”, published in the Rhode Island Tercentenary Historical Edition of Tiverton, Rhode Island by the Tiverton Historical Society in 1936.
Two years after this article was published, the Nanaquaket Bridge did not survive the Hurricane of 1938. The wooden superstructure was moved 150 yards from its rock foundation onto dry land in Nanaquaket and the foundation was destroyed, as seen in these photographs.
1938 Hurricane washes up Nanaquaket Bridge 150 yards away on land
The bridge has since been repaired, but no longer has the superstructure. A wooden model of the superstructure resides in the main chambers of the Tiverton Town Hall.