The Schoharie Creek Bridges at Esperance, NY

With the conclusion of the War of Independence in 1783, the former colonies, now states, could not move forward commercially or expand westward without new infrastructure, in particular roads and bridges.

Following authorization by state legislatures, these, however, were left to local government and private enterprise to build.

To that end, the New York State Legislature authorized four bridges in 1792, one of them crossing Schoharie Creek at what became Esperance in Schoharie County. Without trained engineers, bridge building was left to local builders, and these crossings were typically simple trestle and beam bridges, close to the water and easily lost during flooding or ice jams.

Esperance’s first bridge, constructed in 1793 by an unknown builder, only lasted until 1798. Esperance’s crossing, however, became critical with the chartering of the Great Western Turnpike Company in 1799, which began at Albany and ran westward, passing through
Esperance.

Based on circumstantial evidence, a second bridge was completed by Theodore Burr (1771-1822), a native of Connecticut who had crossed the frontier and settled in Oxford, New York in 1793.

Only experienced in building houses and mills, Burr likely built another simple beam bridge. However, by the time this bridge was lost in 1810 or 1811, Burr had developed bold new designs capable of spanning the great rivers blocking travel and trade.

These included construction of high-rising laminated arch spans over the Hudson River at Waterford in 1804 and over the Delaware at Trenton, New Jersey in 1806 as well as a failed wooden suspension and arch structure over the Mohawk at Schenectady completed in 1808.

Burr’s proposal and contract with the turnpike company for a third bridge not yet having been located, we only know that Burr designed a radically different structure for Esperance but apparently left construction to others, because by November, 1811 he had moved to Northumberland, Pennsylvania, to begin building bridges over the Susquehanna there and at Harrisburg.

Thanks to unknown carpenters, the third bridge at Esperance opened on January 1, 1812, without Burr’s presence. It consisted of three double lane spans, each about 100 feet long, supported by three systems of laminated arches with reinforcing braces beneath the deck anchored into substantial stone abutments and piers that kept it high enough to avoid the fate of its predecessors.

To avoid rapid deterioration from rain and snow, the bridge was covered with a framework for siding and a roof, an innovation to bridge building pioneered in Timothy Palmer’s “Permanent Bridge” over the Schuylkill at Philadelphia completed in 1805. Consequently, this covered Esperance bridge lasted more than a hundred years, until 1930, when it needed to be replaced.

Because of its sturdy design, tearing it down proved too difficult, and finally the bridge had to be burned. Though one of Burr’s more modest bridges, it was also his longest lasting, and consequently there are numerous photographs allowing us to see the bridge, both during its heyday and during its demise.

With the dissolution of the turnpike company in 1927, Burr’s old bridge became part of a new system of public highways, specifically U.S. 20, but being no longer adequate for gasoline powered cars and trucks, had to give way to a modern bridge.

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), which has a fuller treatment of the Esperance crossings.

This essay is sponsored by the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges.

Illustrations of the bridge across Schoharie Creek at Esperance courtesy of Esperance Historical Society and Museum.