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Although
residents of château country have abided a nondescript open
crossing over the Brandywine for the equivalent of two
generations, they have stuck by a belief that the file on the
long-ago crime cannot be brought to closure until a 'permanent'
replacement succeeds that 'temporary' one. They are now looking
for that to happen in time to hold a grand reopening
celebration shortly before Christmas.
It
doesn't come any too soon for Cindy Tobias, who has a vivid
recollection of standing as an 11-year-old Tower Hill School
student amid the charred remains of the burned bridge. "It was a
very sad day. We felt like we had lost something very close to
us," she said.
She now lives next to the east side
of the crossing, in the area less than a football field long
which separates it from the Pennsylvania border. Her father,
Irénée du Pont, still lives in the hilltop mansion,
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A giant crane
-- of which only about half is visible in this photo
-- lefts the first of two wooden trusses into place
on the upriver side of Smith Bridge. |
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Otto Grieshaber,
of Pocopson Industries, shows area resident Cindy
Tobias the close fit of one of the joints on the
wood truss. |
Workers pause
for lunch before completing the task of guiding the
truss into place. |
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Granogue,
which overlooks the valley on the west side.
He was among those who were instrumental in leading the charge
which induced Delaware Department of Transportation to undertake
an historic restoration instead of building a conventional
bridge.
If there
is any thought, however, that residents are getting back what
they lost, it is illusionary. Only in appearance will the new
covered bridge be like the one which stood at the site, albeit
with many modifications and alterations, between 1839 and
1961. The first recorded crossing at the site -- which may or
may not have been covered -- was built in 1816.
This one
is state-of-the-art.
Just as
Tobias is recording its building with digital photography, there
is a world of difference between a 21st Century covered bridge
and kind that farmers and grist mill owners, such as Isaac Smith
put together in much the same way they raised barns.
For
starters, Pocopson president Otto Grieshaber said, the trusses
were formed using robotic technology. That was necessary because
they are bongassi, the hardest wood. It grows only in the Congo
Republic, in central Africa.
It must
be imported from a company in the Netherlands, which has
exclusive international rights to market it, through a
distributor in Canada. It is impervious to insects and naturally
fire-resistant. Weighing 72 lbs. a cubic foot, the wood is
heavier than water and therefore would sink, rather than float.
The
trusses are 52 feet long and required a crane so large that it
had to be disassembled to access the site to lift into place.
Even so,
the job of preparing and placing it required the skills of
two zimmermen -- or timber masters. They are brothers, Manuel
and Willie Krusi, from Switzerland.
Appropriately enough, given Smith Bridge's location, a bit of
technology likely to be overlooked is the placement of small
plastic patches made of Teflon, a Du Pont Co. product, at
locations on the inward sides of the trusses. They are protect
the wood, hard as it is, from being scraped as the result of
friction from the slight movement of the roadway decking under
the weight of vehicles crossing it.
Grieshaber said Pocopson, which is based in the Chester County,
Pa., township of the same name, is in the timber framing
business. It's specialty is producing architectural trusses.
Building a bridge is an unusual application; more common are
erecting supports for the multi-story open spaces that are
popular in resort hotels.
It is
generally agreed that any covered bridges being built now are
intended mainly for the tourist trade. Putting one up on a
conventional connector road, such as Smith Bridge Road, is
extremely rare. There is one other covered bridge in New Castle
County -- at Ashland.
"We're
very pleased that Delaware decided to build a covered bridge,"
Grieshaber said.
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