The Old Stone Arch Bridge is a bridge located in Bound Brook, New Jersey, United States. It is the second-oldest extant bridge in the US, after the Frankford Avenue Bridge (built in 1697) over Pennypack Creek in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Frankford Avenue Bridge, Bridgehunter.com Built in 1731, it is the oldest bridge in New Jersey. It spans the Green Brook and connects Bound Brook (Somerset County) with Middlesex Borough (Middlesex County) in northern central New Jersey.
The bridge also carried the Great Road Up Raritan, laid out in 1681, which was created by an act of the assembly of the Province of East Jersey.National Register of Historic Places Database, Road Up Raritan Historic District Registration Form https://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp In 1764, the colonial highway, west of what is now Lambertville on the Delaware River and east of Elizabethtown Point on Newark Bay, was christened Old York Road. The highway represented the shortest route between Philadelphia and New York City (reached by ferry). It was built shortly after the King's Highway and called a variety of names, but it was most prominently known as the Upper Road when the Assunpink Trail was widened.New Jersey Historic Road Survey, New Jersey Department of Transportation, 2011 The bridge allowed farmers, plantation owners, and all those west and north of the Raritan River a direct route to the colonial ports of New Brunswick and Raritan Landing. Since the early 1870s, the Old Stone Arch Bridge has been buried up to the parapets due to the construction of a railroad embankment.
Description The bridge, supposedly made from locally quarried rough-hewn masonry and stone, is a classic, three-arch edifice. The center span is approximately wide with two side arches that are approximately and on the west and east sides respectively. Only a sign, often hidden behind weeds, wild bushes and large trucks or trailers that park alongside it, identifies what lies beneath. The roadway between the exposed south and non-visible north parapet, which may at some point have been widened, is approximately in width. It is about long, more than the Pennypack Creek Bridge. Only the south parapet and a spandrel, in the center and at each end, are visible. It is believed to indicate that prior to the original roadway's flattening, it was a typical humpback or camelback bridge.National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet. Application for listing of Old Stone Arch Bridge. A concrete barrier was installed several years ago to protect the south parapet.
The novelty of the bridge remains additionally reinforced by the fact that the first bridges in New Jersey, constructed within colonial times, were a few logs dropped across a stream with sawn timbers fastened to them to provide a flat, relatively even surface, with the occasional inclusion of a handrail. Most were funded by local municipalities.New Jersey Historic Highway Roadway Study, New Jersey Department of Transportation, January 2011New Jersey Historical Bridge Survey” New Jersey Department of Transportation, Bureau of Environmental Analysis, and The Federal Highway Administration, New Jersey Division (September 1994) Today in regions of central and northern New Jersey that have access to mountainous terrain where stone is abundant, bridges are almost exclusively stone arch bridges. Most of them were constructed between the 1820s and early 1900s. There are a few in the southern portions of the state, which may have resulted from smaller quantities of congestion and less abundant stone.
Endangered status As the bridge had been buried for over 140 years, it is listed by Preservation New Jersey as one of the "10 Most Endangered Historic Sites in New Jersey".10 Most Endangered Historic Sites in New Jersey, Preservation New Jersey http://www.preservationnj.org/site/ExpEng/index.php?/ten_most_12/archive_by_year/2002 However, Somerset County's Cultural and Heritage Commission has reported that the county invested almost $100,000 to unearth and restore the state's most historic bridge.Somerset County, New Jersey Cultural and Heritage Commission, http://www.co.somerset.nj.us/publicworks/cultural/ The project had full cooperation from its neighboring Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission and the county has assumed responsibility for the structure.Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission http://www.co.middlesex.nj.us/culturalheritage/index.asp The bridge was additionally placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
Communities The center of the bridge is on the border between the Somerset and Middlesex Counties and the interior boroughs of Bound Brook and Middlesex.!Jeffrey Baldwin, Principal Surveyor and Ancient Route Specialist, Somerset County, N.J. Engineering Department When the bridge was being built in 1731, Bound Brook Borough was part of Bridgewater and Middlesex Borough remained part of Piscataway.Walter A. De Angelo, Esq., History Buff’s Guide To Middlesex CountyAbraham Messler, D.D., C.M, Centennial History of Somerset County, Jameson Publisher, Somerville, NJ 1878
Byways which crossed the bridge Among the initial primary highways constructed in the state of New Jersey, the Camden Turnpike, the Amboy Turnpike and sectors of the modern Cranbury Road the first 3 primary highways in the state remained; the third member of this group comprised a sector of the modern River Road, which crossed the Old Stone Arch Bridge (though it was not a significant highway prior to the American Revolutionary War) as sectors of the highway separated northeast to modern Dunellen, turning west, continuing southwest to the point where it crossed the bridge and proceeding to the division point of the northern and southern branches of the river at Branchburg. From there the highway followed some existing roads southwest toward the Delaware River; further evidence that the highway was known by that name was provided in 1936 by Cornelius C. Vermeule in his Raritan Landing That Was, 1675–1875 (1936) which provided a road map he drew to recreate the route.See also Harold E. Pickersgill and John Patrick Wall History of Middlesex County, New Jersey, 1664-1920, These routes were accompanied at the time via the modern road known as State Route 27, south of Princeton, New Jersey, which originally extended to Salem. The portion designated the "Old Salem Road" crossed the bridge, though the route possesses several additional names, including the "Asapink Trail", "Upper Road", "Old Dutch Road" and the "Lincoln Highway". It was originally known as "Lawrie's Road" or "Lower Road"; the third highway constituted what is a portion of today's River Road, extending from Piscataway to Bound Brook.
As early as the late 17th century, starting in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, a highway known as Old York Road began from Philadelphia to New Hope on the Delaware River across from one of the major ferries to New Jersey.New Hope, PA, Coryell’s Ferry In the Revolution The highway was conceived by a petition to Governor Charles Gookin and his council in 1691 by the Cheltenham settlers that asked for a road to be built between the Delaware River and Philadelphia, which resulted in a 1711 survey.Anne de Bennevile Maears, The old York road; and its early associations and biography 1670-1870 (Harper & Brothers, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1890) From 1711 to 1772 it was constructed and ran from Central Philadelphia to Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth) Point. The main road still exists under different names, but a large portion still has that name in Pennsylvania and New Jersey from Lambertville to Hillsborough.James and Margaret Cawley. Along The Old York Road, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ (1965) It was formally accepted and authorized after a 1762 road survey conducted by Somerset County that ended with its eastern terminus in that county as "to middle of Bound Brook Stone Bridge".Emogene Van Sickel, The Old York Road and its Stage Coach Days (1936) and New Jersey State Archives
As the shortest route from Philadelphia to New York City, Old York Road was selected by the Swift Sure Stagecoach line, a stagecoach company which was granted a franchise via the two states.Emogene Van Sickle The Old York Road and Its Stage Coach Days, D. H. Moureauu Publisher, Flemington, NJ 1936 It ran well into the middle of the 19th century until the development of efficient railroad lines. The Old Stage Inn on Front Street and Park Avenue in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, built in 1737, was one of the original taverns and stage coach stops, known as "ordinaries", where mail was dropped off and passengers could receive food, drink, additional perishables and rest for the duration of the night; it currently remains in business south of U.S 22, with a memorial marker on a small boulder next to a flagpole on Front Street just in front of the inn.
Impact of the Raritan Landing The Old Stone Arch Bridge was built to allow hunters, farmers, tradesmen and all other travelers between northwest New Jersey and west of it to cross the Green Brook.
In the early 18th century, traveling along the northern bank of the Raritan westward from Somerset County required crossing the Green Brook, which merged into a confluence with the Raritan River from Middlesex County. Unlike many other rivers and waterway crossings in the colonies, and New Jersey in particular, there was no established ferry. It was impossible to cross the brook without taking an extremely long and time-consuming northern bypass, and particularly became a problem because of the emergence of the ports of New Brunswick and Raritan Landing across from each other on the river.
Raritan Landing emerged as a vital port community during the 1720s. It was situated at the farthest inland point on the Raritan River that could be navigated by merchant ships of the day. In its prime, the landing was the center for local trade and, along with New Brunswick, served as a hub for imports and exports to and from the Raritan Valley. By the 1740s, there were approximately 70 structures and more than 100 inhabitants. By the end of the Revolutionary War it had become insignificant after being ravished by the invading British armies and overshadowed by New Brunswick, where the river was deeper.Cornelius C. Vermeule Raritan Landing That Was, The History of a River Port from 1675 to 1875, originally read before the New Brunswick Historical Club on April 17, 1930
Burial The Old Stone Arch Bridge is obscurely located along what is no more than a rough road driveway to a warehouse occupied by trucking company.
The Somerset County Cultural and Heritage Commission, the Board of Chosen Freeholders in the county and their site coordinator, Thomas d'Amico, commissioned a feasibility study that included excavating portions of the structure that were buried in the early 1870s, when the second of three railroad lines passed via Bound Brook.French & Parrello Associates, P.A, Consulting Engineers “Report Feasibility Study for the Rehabilitation of Bridge No. HO 711 Historic Stone Arch Bridge (Circa 1731) They discovered the bridge, despite its burial for more than approximately 140 years; the portion of the brook it spanned, which flowed into the Raritan River approximately 100 yards to the south, was redirected to allow dry ground to form beneath the bridge.
Rediscovery and proposed unearthing and preservation