06/11/2026
We love getting emails that help our community learn more about Salisbury’s history.
Salisbury Historical Society,
I can provide some information that could be used to update the “Bridges” section of your website, which I stumbled upon:
1. Peters Bridge. I remember this covered bridge being in use for automobiles until at least the mid 1950s.
2. Twin Bridges. About 35 years ago, I researched the history of bridges on this site, in conjunction with my research of the history of the previous ownership of land that my family owns and that could be accessed by these bridges today, if they still existed.
It does seem to be a mystery why these bridges were built. The explanation that I come up with is that West Salisbury was a bustling little community in the mid-1800s with enough activity to justify them. The Gookins operated a saw mill, a planning mill and a gristmill just downstream from these bridges. Other manufacturing/commercial enterprises in the immediate vicinity included a carriage maker, a shoe maker and a store/post office. And another mill operated a little farther downstream at the site of the Pingree Bridge.
The earliest reference that I could find placing a bridge at or near this site is on page 340 of the 1890 town history: “James Currier early erected a gristmill on Blackwater river opposite the John Shaw mill, the canal being in front of Thomas Whittaker’s. A plank walk was built across the river to give access to the mill.” No date is given for the mill or the bridge, but, since Currier purchased the land at this site in 1794, the “plank walk” was probably there by around 1800.
The earliest reference that I could find placing a bridge at this exact site is an 1843 deed from Cyrus Gookin to David Gookin, which gives “the abutment of the bridge above the mill” as part of the description of the land conveyed. This abutment, made of massive cut granite blocks, remains today.
The bridges here would have been used to access David Gookin’s sawmill, Thomas Whittaker’s house, Chester Pratt’s (and later Daniel Pratt’s) cottage and Fred Sargent’s farm land.
The shoemaker Thomas Whittaker lived here from around 1859 to 1899. In the 1890s, the bridges here were apparently in poor condition. Book 5, Page 469, of the original Salisbury town records relates that, in 1895, Whittaker petitioned the town to reconstruct the bridges to enable him to access his house. To avoid the expense of litigation, the town agreed to pay Whittaker $75 and supply him with planks to reconstruct the bridges, with the stipulation that this act would not “be construed in any way as a laying out of a public highway.”
According to long-time West Salisbury resident Daniel “Charlie” Pratt, these bridges were washed out by the great flood of 1936. Several provisional attempts were made to replace them with small suspension foot bridges, but these were soon abandoned.
Brad Dorsey
Hopkinton, NH
