In New Hampshire: a Rare Span

By Judson Gooding

"Fixing this bridge won't be easy," Milton Graton says, shaking his head as he surveys the long wood-covered passageway across the Connecticut River. "It's a complicated job. If it's done right, the bridge will be around a long time. But if it isn't, it could just fall in the river."

Graton is standing on the heavy planks that form the floor of the longest remaining covered bridge in the U.S., planks that shake a bit as cars and pickup trucks rumble past. The 120-year-old bridge, considered one of the country's historical treasures, links Cornish, N.H., with Windsor, Vt., leaping the brown, swirling waters of the Connecticut River in two giant spans joined by a pier in the center of the stream. There is bright sunshine outside, and the fall foliage is brilliant with color, but inside the bridge there is only dim light from the small windows spaced along the sides. Some motorists turn on their lights.

A recent engineering report says the bridge is "functioning with marginal, decayed components" and that "rehabilitation must be undertaken." Even an untutored eye can see the sag of the long wooden trusses that hold the roadway high above the water. Graton's eye is hardly untutored, though; he is the foremost expert in the world on the construction and restoration of covered bridges. With his son Arnold, he has built or repaired some three dozen of them.

Lean and slightly bent from years of work with hammer and saw, pick and shovel, Graton has sinewy, brown forearms and a powerful grip belying his 77 years.

The 466-ft. bridge, built in 1866, is the fourth on the same site; the others were carried away by flood waters or smashed by ice floes. It is a long, gray shedlike structure, faintly medieval in appearance. The siding boards on the upstream side give evidence of the last heavy attack by ice, in 1977; the lower ends of the boards, which were broken off, have been replaced, and are lighter in color. The sky shows through the dozens of small holes in the roof.

Since 1980 there has been intermittent discussion, and argument, over restoration of the bridge. Everyone agrees it should be repaired and strengthened -- 2,500 vehicles are driven across it every day -- but there are strong differences of opinion over the extent to which authenticity should be preserved and whether the work should be done by Graton or the New Hampshire ! Department of Transportation. Things heated up in 1984, when a rehabilitation plan devised by Graton, using wood almost exclusively for the necessary repairs, was distributed. Public hearings on the Vermont and New Hampshire sides of the river brought out crowds of concerned citizens, many of whom favored Graton's plan.

Graton, however, does not adhere to traditional techniques in matters of bridge building alone. He also prefers old-fashioned ways of doing business, and has always tried to avoid lengthy contracts, performance bonds, "pre- qualification registration," and other such modern advances. On one job, when Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials demanded that a safety net be suspended below the span on which Graton and his crew were working, Graton complied, in his fashion: he balled up a net and tied it in a bundle under the bridge.

"I've been building covered bridges for 30 years," he growls. "I say the hell with contracts; I work on the basis of a handshake." So esteemed is Graton in New Hampshire, his home state, for his work on covered bridges that a Milton S. Graton Day was proclaimed in 1970, paying tribute to him as a "craftsman without peer."

A new sense of urgency about the bridge arose when an examination last spring showed serious structural weaknesses. The state legislature voted to provide $850,000 to fix the bridge -- just the amount Graton estimated his plan would cost. The bill stipulates that the money is "for . . . the restoration/authentic rehabilitation of the bridge." The legislature also made an extraordinary concession in its bill, specifying that in this particular case, the usual requirement for competitive bidding "may be waived." This too seemed meant to assure that Graton would do the work.

During the summer, an engineering consulting firm delivered a report proposing a rehabilitation job costing somewhere between $1 million and $1.5 million. Then, in July, highway authorities decided for safety to reduce the load limit of the bridge from six to three tons. This meant no more passage for heavy trucks, particularly the fire trucks from Windsor that were often dispatched to the Cornish side under a mutual-aid pact. The nearest alternative crossing is five miles downstream.

Support for Graton's approach to rehabilitation seems widespread. Virginia Colby of Cornish, an eloquent Graton advocate, says, "The bridge is a national treasure. To do the repairs wrong would be like putting aluminum ; siding on Abraham Lincoln's cabin."

Perhaps the most fervent supporter of Graton's approach is David W. Wright from Westminster, Vt., a little ways down the river. He is a director of the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges. Wright has worked thousands of hours preparing drawings of Graton's plan and appearing before citizens and legislative meetings. "These old bridges should be saved, without adding a lot of steel boilerplate, for future generations to wonder at," he says. "The great Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge is a masterpiece. It is beautiful -- wonderful in its intricacy and its simplicity."

The two state officials most directly responsible for resolving the imbroglio, along with the legislature, are New Hampshire Transportation Commissioner Wallace E. Stickney and Governor John H. Sununu, both engineers. Stickney says, "It is almost a conflict between romance and technology. I respect the integrity of Milton Graton," he continues, "but what happens if he runs out of money two-thirds of the way through the job and there is no bond to cover finishing it? This is the public's money we're spending."

"I am sure that some compromise will be possible," says Governor Sununu, gazing out the window of his office in the state's old gray granite capitol building in Concord. "This bridge makes up part of the rural and historic character of this state. We want to preserve it." He adds, "It is very, very unusual to waive competitive bidding, but we want to get the best craftsmen there are to do the job."

And what about the bond requirement, which Graton is reluctant to meet? "We may have to take his oldest child," the Governor laughs.

With no decision yet made on the Cornish-Windsor bridge rehabilitation, Graton busies himself meanwhile with other projects. His route between home in Ashland, N.H., and various jobs sometimes takes him near Cornish, and he stops to see how the old bridge is holding up. On one such recent visit he studied it from a parking area that overlooks the span and is frequently used by tourists who stop to take photographs.

Walking onto the bridge, he looked closely at the joints where the thick timbers of the truss supporting the bridge meet. He brought up a handful of powdery dirt and let it fall from his palm, slowly. "The neglect of this bridge is shameful," he said. "Dirt holds moisture, and moisture is what rots wood. That's the whole reason these bridges are covered -- to keep the wood dry. With the right care, covered bridges can last hundreds of years, longer than steel and concrete."

Looking reflectively down the length of the bridge, he said, "I have almost a perfect lack of confidence in those state fellows. If I were to pray, I would pray that the bridge be spared the attentions of engineers, and of arsonists -- equal dangers with very little difference. This bridge is a masterpiece. You can't help but be stirred by the workmanship that went into it. It should be saved. When it's gone, it's gone."