The Newburyport Bridge: The First Long-Span Wooden Bridge in the United States

摘要

The era of the long-span wooden truss bridge began with the construction of the Newburyport Bridge, also knownrnas the Essex-Merrimack Bridge, across the Merrimack River between Salisbury and Newbury, Massachusetts, by Timothy Palmer in 1792. Using the lessons learned on this, his first bridge, Palmer went on to build three other bridges across the Merrimack and more over the Piscataqua River in Maine, the Potomac River near Georgetown, the Permanent Bridge over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia and the Easton Bridge over the Delaware River. His construction methods and usernof naturally curved timber set the stage for explosive growth in long-span bridge building in the United States.