{"id":2142,"date":"2020-11-15T05:41:28","date_gmt":"2020-11-15T05:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/?page_id=2142"},"modified":"2020-11-15T05:41:28","modified_gmt":"2020-11-15T05:41:28","slug":"the-county-bridge","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/near-by-morgan\/the-county-bridge\/","title":{"rendered":"The County Bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Morgan Mystery \u2013 The County Bridge<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Original configuration of the \u201cCounty Bridge\u201d over the Raritan River between Perth Amboy and South Amboy, New Jersey. View from the Perth Amboy side looking south.\nPicture post card image courtesy of Joyce Elyea.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

During my two decades in Morgan, there were three automobile bridges over the Raritan River near its mouth with Raritan Bay.\u00a0 The Parkway bridge cost something to ride on and was somewhat inconvenient to get to at the time.\u00a0 The ancient Victory Bridge was also kind of out of the way but made an interesting sound when driven on. Typically, the bridge to take over the Raritan River, when in a car, was the Edison Bridge.\u00a0 It was, after all, \u201cHighway 9\u201d and, even better, free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While first reading about the 1918 Morgan based Gillespie Shell Loading Company explosions, the various newspapers would discuss how many of the citizens of South Amboy walked over the \u201cCounty Bridge\u201d in order to get out of the city and away from the horrific explosions which were happing to the south of South Amboy.\u00a0 The bridge was north.\u00a0 After finding out that the Victory Bridge, the oldest auto bridge across the Raritan in my time, wasn\u2019t opened until 1926, the curiosity grew.\u00a0 What bridge did these frightened people cross that terrible weekend, what did it look like, and where was it actually located?\u00a0 I had never noticed the remains of any other bridge across the Raritan so it was another Morgan mystery!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, thanks to the generosity of Joyce Elyea, I caught my first glimpse of this long-forgotten pioneer bridge which once crossed the Raritan for 20 something years.  Before we jump on the bridge, so to speak (or write), let\u2019s first get an idea what transportation was like in the area in previous centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1900, there were boats, there were trains and there were horses.\u00a0 I guess there were also shoes.\u00a0 Bicycles became popular in the 1890s but there was this thing known as winter in New Jersey which made bicycling seasonal at best. Street cars, better known as trolleys, were just about to become popular for a couple of decades but they were still a few years off. In 1900, there was one bridge across the Raritan River near its mouth.\u00a0 It was the railroad bridge from the 1870s<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Automobiles were still in their infancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Perth Amboy area was settled starting in 1683, the only way to get across the Raritan River to current day South Amboy was via boat – not that there were many reasons at the time to actually cross over to present day South Amboy.  While there might have been discussions at the time about building a bridge across the half mile wide river, it\u2019s doubtful that such discussions actually would have happened at that time. At that time, London had its famous London Bridge but that was only one fifth the length of what would be needed to cross the Raritan.  London was also already a thousand years old and had a large population which made the bridge necessary.  It is doubtful that any technology was known or available at that time which could traverse the half mile wide tidal Raritan River, much less a river which had ice flows during the winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was ferry service between Perth Amboy and South Amboy, later called Redford\u2019s (or Radford\u2019s) Ferry which started sometime in the late 1600\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t until the very beginning of the 20th<\/sup> Century however when a road bridge finally became a reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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County Bridge, circa 1908.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s difficult to determine exactly when construction the \u201cCounty Bridge\u201d over the Raritan River, located three quarters of a mile upstream of the original 1875 railroad bridge between Perth Amboy and South Amboy, actually began.\u00a0 One newspaper report implies 1902.\u00a0 We do know that it was already under construction as of August 6, 1903 per that issue of the Perth Amboy Evening News<\/a> which reported, \u201cThe concrete is being laid at the rate of 150 cubic yards per day.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had the rather dull name of \u201cCounty Bridge\u201d because it was initiated and primarily funded by Middlesex County.  The idea of naming bridges after people apparently didn\u2019t start to become a thing until many years hence.  $150,000 was provided by the Board of Chosen Freeholders of Middlesex County and a contract to build the bridge was awarded to the company Sanford & Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the subsequent next few years, a number of issues impeded the progress to complete and the open the County Bridge.  The first issue was ice.  I don\u2019t ever recall seeing ice flows on the Raritan River during my time in Morgan but in the beginning part of the 20th<\/sup> Century, they were a thing.  Global Warming, perhaps?  During both the winters of March 1904 and January 1905, ice flows severely damaged the under-construction bridge \u2013 and in nearly the same place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The January 19, 1905 Perth Amboy Evening News<\/a> indicated, \u201cThe bridge was carried away for a space of seventy-five feet on the third of March last year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, there had been no ice guards built at the base of the bridge to protect against ice flows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same issue indicated that the new bridge was again severely damaged that January of 1905 morning by ice, \u201c\u2026  the structure gave \u2018way, pilings broke off and were pulled up, begin swept down the stream.  The top of the bridge, while it had not been carried away this morning, was without support and sagged considerably leaning three or four feet out of line with the rest of the bridge and is momentarily expected to collapse<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if that wasn\u2019t enough, another issue surrounding the completion of the bridge centered around who was responsible for building the Perth Amboy \u201capproach\u201d to the bridge.\u00a0 An \u201capproach\u201d is the roadway which \u201cconnects\u201d the bridge to the land.\u00a0 There were discussions in December 1904<\/a> regarding whether or not the City of Perth Amboy should build an \u201capproach\u201d to the \u201cunfinished\u201d bridge.\u00a0 Its unclear to this author what the whole kerfuffle was all about but it seemed to have something to do with county rights\/responsibilities vs. city rights\/responsibilities.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t see a similar issue for the south side of the bridge which technically was located in Sayreville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Friday, December 16, 1904 issue<\/a> states: \u201cLet us know who has got to build the approach and then let the work be done without further delay<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, and as if the ice flows and the approaches issues weren\u2019t enough, there was one other barrier to opening the bridge.\u00a0 The August 17, 1905 issue of the Perth Amboy Evening News<\/a> identified someone named Charles A. Bloomfield, Chairman of the Manufacturers\u2019 Committee, who accused the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders of \u201cmisusing the public\u2019s money.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This author again has to admit that I don\u2019t actually understand what that issue was or what the manufacturers\u2019 committee was.  Seems kind of sketchy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately however, the approach issue eventually got resolved.\u00a0 The December 7, 1905 edition of the Perth Amboy Evening News<\/a> announced that a contract to construct Perth Amboy approach was awarded to Sanford & Harris, the builders of the bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Perth Amboy Evening News. (Perth Amboy, N.J.), 19 June 1906. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Finally, some six months later and after nearly four years of construction and however long of a delay because of Mr. Bloomfield, the County Bridge opened on June 19, 1906<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u201cCounty Bridge\u201d (left) is shown in this 1924 U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey map along with the 1875 railroad bridge (right).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As can be seen in the 1924 map above, access to the county bridge from the Sayreville\/South Amboy south side was via current day Scott Street.\u00a0 Drivers coming out of South Amboy to the bridge would have had to first to go through the famed, and still standing, \u201cHole in the Wall<\/a>\u201d.\u00a0 There was an unusually long approach (causeway?) from Scott Street leading up to the curve to the swing portion of the bridge.\u00a0 On the Perth Amboy side can be seen the relatively short \u2013 and once controversial \u2013 approach deck leading onto Sheridan Street.\u00a0 During the time of the bridge, there was a Chesebrough Manufacturing Company factory off of Sheridan Street where they manufactured Vaseline (U.S. Patent 127,568).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1914 Sanborn Fire Map of the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company \u2013 Vaseline Works located at the foot of the \u201cWooden Bridge to South Amboy\u201d better known as the \u201cCounty Bridge\u201d.\nhttps:\/\/maps.princeton.edu\/catalog\/princeton-ft848s72s\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

According to Bridgehunter.com (Bridge Inventory Number ID: BH 75211), the swing portion of the county bridge was 288.4 feet long and was of the type known as a Parker through truss swing bridge.\u00a0 The US Congressional Serial Set indicated the bridge had \u201ca swing span with two draw openings each 109 feet wide with a vertical clearance when the draw is closed of 5.4 feet above the plane of mean high water<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 The swing portion of the bridge was situated to accommodate the dredged Raritan River ship channel.\u00a0 Some accounts appear to indicate the first dredging of the river in this section may trace as far back as 1837.\u00a0 It was later dredged in 1923.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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County Bridge with two trusses as seen from the Perth Amboy side.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As can be seen on the picture post cards in this post, initially the bridge had the single Parker through truss swing section with a wooden road on both sides of it.\u00a0 Later post cards show another longer type of metal truss structure on the south side of the swing section.\u00a0 I have not yet found any explanation regarding the cause for this additional truss structure or when it was constructed.\u00a0 Perhaps it had to do with bridge integrity and ice flows or perhaps it was installed when the Jersey Central Traction Company added the trolley portions to the bridge (see below)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The original configuration of the County Bridge featured a wooden road surface, circa 1911. Image courtesy of Joyce Elyea.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What would not have been clear to everyone in 1903 as construction of this bridge was beginning \u2013 which would have meant the design phase would have occurred earlier \u2013 was that a fundamental change in personal transportation was under way.\u00a0 Eighty years later, a similar type of paradigm change would occur with personal computers, 10 years after that another paradigm change was this thing called the internet, and 15 years after that was this thing called the smart phone.\u00a0 It is hard to know, especially at the \u201cbeginning\u201d of a fundamental paradigm change, that a fundamental paradigm change is even occurring. \u00a0The ramifications for this brand-new 1906 bridge across the Raritan River was that it was it wasn\u2019t designed for cars, trucks, or trolleys so much as it was designed for pedestrians, horses and horse drawn carriages.\u00a0 In other words, just like the 1911 bridge constructed over Cheesequake Creek<\/a> a few miles south of it, the County Bridge was obsolete even before it opened \u2013 but who knew?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/maps.princeton.edu\/catalog\/princeton-kk91fn66t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s look at a little bit of the history of automobile manufacturing in the US for a little perspective regarding why.  The Ford Motor Company became a corporation in June 1903 and didn\u2019t start producing cars until the following month (right around when the concrete was being poured for the County Bridge).  The bridge opened in 1906 and the Ford Model T, the uncontested best-selling motor vehicle in the early 20th<\/sup> Century (and still the #8 best-selling car of all time), didn\u2019t even start rolling out of the factory until two years later in late September 1908.  So, the amount of motorized vehicle traffic across the County Bridge for its first few years would not have been much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a table showing the number of car and truck motor vehicle registrations (not including busses) for all the United States between the years 1900 and 1920.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year<\/strong><\/td># of Cars<\/strong><\/td># of Trucks<\/strong><\/td>Total<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
1900<\/td>8,000<\/td> <\/td>8,000<\/td><\/tr>
1901<\/td>14,800<\/td> <\/td>14,800<\/td><\/tr>
1902<\/td>23,000<\/td> <\/td>23,000<\/td><\/tr>
1903<\/td>32,920<\/td> <\/td>32,920<\/td><\/tr>
1904<\/td>54,590<\/td>700<\/td>55,290<\/td><\/tr>
1905<\/td>77,400<\/td>1,400<\/td>78,800<\/td><\/tr>
1906<\/td>105,900<\/td>2,200<\/td>108,100<\/td><\/tr>
1907<\/td>140,300<\/td>2,900<\/td>143,200<\/td><\/tr>
1908<\/td>194,400<\/td>4,000<\/td>198,400<\/td><\/tr>
1909<\/td>305,950<\/td>6,050<\/td>312,000<\/td><\/tr>
1910<\/td>458,377<\/td>10,123<\/td>468,500<\/td><\/tr>
1911<\/td>618,727<\/td>20,773<\/td>639,500<\/td><\/tr>
1912<\/td>901,596<\/td>42,404<\/td>944,000<\/td><\/tr>
1913<\/td>1,190,393<\/td>67,667<\/td>1,258,060<\/td><\/tr>
1914<\/td>1,664,003<\/td>99,015<\/td>1,763,018<\/td><\/tr>
1915<\/td>2,332,426<\/td>158,506<\/td>2,490,932<\/td><\/tr>
1916<\/td>3,367,889<\/td>250,048<\/td>3,617,937<\/td><\/tr>
1917<\/td>4,727,468<\/td>391,057<\/td>5,118,525<\/td><\/tr>
1918<\/td>5,554,952<\/td>605,496<\/td>6,160,448<\/td><\/tr>
1919<\/td>6,679,133<\/td>897,755<\/td>7,576,888<\/td><\/tr>
1920<\/td>8,131,522<\/td>1,107,639<\/td>9,239,161<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>

State Motor Vehicle Registrations, by Years, 1900 \u2013 1920
Source: https:\/\/www.fhwa.dot.gov\/ohim\/summary95\/mv200.pdf<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A large percentage of these automobiles would have been in the New Jersey area as it was, even then, densely populated.\u00a0 Looking at the above table and adding the numbers of vehicles which were registered in the first 10 years of the 20th<\/sup> Century, there were well over 1 million cars on the roads of the US by 1910. \u00a0Even just 1,000 crossings in an 8-hour day of the bridge would have a rate of two cars per minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Looking south toward South Amboy over the Jersey Central Traction Company tracks which were added to the County Bridge over the Raritan River. Image circa 1910 \u2013 1923.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A major addition to the bridge came in 1910 when the Jersey Central Traction Company added their trolley tracks to the bridge.\u00a0 While one might think that the tracks would have been located in the middle of the road surface for the entire length of the bridge, because the bridge was an existing structure, the tracks had to be added to the sides.\u00a0 For the portion of the bridge on the south side of the swing bridge (the Sayreville\/South Amboy side), a trestle was built on the east side of the roadway.\u00a0 For the portion on the north side of the swing (the Perth Amboy side), the track trestle was added on the west side.\u00a0 The only place the tracks were centered was on the swing portion of the bridge.\u00a0 Likely this was for weight balancing reasons but perhaps it was also a logical place to put the tracks if they needed to be on that side of the bridge when it landed in Perth Amboy. This author recalls once seeing an image of the tracks on the County Bridge in the swing section but doesn\u2019t know where to find it now.\u00a0 If one of the readers finds such an image, please let us know where to find it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to The History and Technology of the Edison Bridge & Driscoll Bridge, \u201cWithin a few years, it [the County Bridge] was inadequate to handle the traffic and the weight of increasingly larger trucks. Calls for a new bridge, which began in 1916, were answered ten years later by the Victory Bridge.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently there are five automobile bridges and one train bridge spanning the Raritan River near its mouth to Raritan Bay.\u00a0 From west to east, they are the Alfred E. Driscoll Bridge (Garden State Parkway), Ellis S. Vieser Bridge (US Route 9 South), Thomas Edison Bridge (US Route 9 North), Victory Bridge #2 (NJ State Route 35), and the 1907 New Jersey Transit railroad bridge.\u00a0 Compare this to the turn of the 20th<\/sup> Century, there was only one bridge crossing the Raritan River near its mouth.\u00a0 That was the 1875 railroad bridge, the first bridge across the wide Raritan River near its mouth and the predecessor to the current NJ Transit railroad bridge<\/a>. The \u201cCounty Bridge\u201d was the second bridge built across the mouth of the Raritan River.\u00a0 The third was the 1908 railroad replacement bridge.\u00a0 The fourth was the original Victory Bridge, opened in June 1926 which was the successor to the County Bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, three of these four earliest bridges across the Raritan River near its mouth are totally gone and the 1908 railroad bridge\u2019s days are now numbered as the ground breaking ceremony for construction of its replacement occurred on September 15, 2020.  Few artifacts remain of the County Bridge which give away the presence of and the location of this essentially long-forgotten bridge.  These are the portion of Scott Street on the river side of Main Street and possibly some pilings in the river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This site\u2019s main source of images of the bridge are via picture post cards with the majority of the coming from Joyce Elyea\u2019s collection.  Thank you yet again, Joyce!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This site<\/a> has a very nice write up about the history of the bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Evening view of the County Bridge from the northwest side.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Originally posted November 14, 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Morgan Mystery \u2013 The County Bridge During my two decades in Morgan, there were three automobile bridges over the Raritan River near its mouth with Raritan Bay.\u00a0 The Parkway bridge cost something to ride on and was somewhat inconvenient to get to at the time.\u00a0 The ancient Victory Bridge was also kind of out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":315,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/full-width.php","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2142","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2142"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2145,"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2142\/revisions\/2145"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morgan-nj.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}