by the state treasurer on September 11, 1889, Hartford Bridge became a free crossing.13
“Quite a crowd had gathered by this time, and a line of sprinters had been formed, from those who were eager for the distinction of being first over the free bridge. Patrick Turley was the Mercury of this band and he easily won the contested honor … a curiosity gatherer, purchased the last silver dollar, paid to the bridge man for toll, for $1.50. There was plenty of fun-making by the spectators … everyone was evidently in the best of spirits.” Except perhaps for the bridge company shareholders, who were sorry to see their investment come to an end.14
Once Hartford Bridge became a free crossing, however, problems began to appear. The five-town Board for the Care of Highways and Bridges across the Connecticut River soon entered into a contract with the Hartford & Wethersfield Horse Railway Company to build and operate a horse railroad across the bridge from Hartford to East Hartford. The horse railway company was to install its tracks on new planking and afterwards maintain the bridge deck for two feet on either side of its tracks, thereby easing the cost of maintenance for the five bridge towns. However, two years later, when the railway company decided to electrify the line, an inspection of the bridge indicated that the wooden structure, by then more than seventy years old, was “in rather poor shape” and in places was beginning to move away from its brick foundation piers, likely a result of vibrations caused by the operation of the horse railroad.15
Once it became apparent that the crossing would have to be replaced sooner rather than later, the board hired a law firm to lobby the legislature on behalf of a bill that would transfer ownership of Hartford Bridge to the state for the sole purpose of reconstruction. In June 1893, the General Assembly acquiesced to the board’s wishes, and a new law declared that Hartford Bridge and its approaches “hereafter be maintained by the state of Connecticut at its expense.” That July, the legislature appointed three commissioners to oversee the rebuilding of the bridge, and they in turn contracted with the Berlin Iron Bridge Company to construct a new steel span.16
With the bridge replacement project underway, a scandal erupted when it was discovered that the commissioners had used $35,000 in public bridge funds to lobby for the bill transferring ownership to the state, an action contrary to their status as agents of the state. In addition, it was discovered that the contract for a new bridge had been entered into without the commissioners keeping proper records of their actions. As a result, Morgan G. Buckeley, former governor of Connecticut and a well-respected Republican political boss, took legislative charge of the matter and—once again consistent with the Connecticut tradition of town responsibility for highways—introduced a bill to repeal the act of 1893 and return the bridge to town ownership for reconstruction and future maintenance. Hearings were held and arguments were made, pro and con, for weeks. In the end, the Buckeley bill passed the Senate and was to be taken up by the House “Wednesday next.”17
No sooner had news of the pending action appeared when an early evening fire (accidental or otherwise) destroyed the old wooden bridge. “Thousands of men and women watched it for four or five hours, from both river banks and from boats.” One witness to the grand sight was a teenaged girl from East Hartford named Mabel Goodwin, who rode down to the river on her bicycle to witness the conflagration with her sister: “The old bridge over the Connecticut River caught fire and was completely burned all excepting a little piece on the west side of the river. Jennie and I rode down to see it burn and nearly everybody that possibly could went. It was a glorious sight and the wind blew up the river so that the sparks were all carried that way and so there was not much danger to the buildings near by. Nobody was killed but two fire horses were burned to death.”18
Two steam-powered ferryboats were soon brought in to carry people back and forth across the river in place of the burned bridge. Despite the disruption of streetcar service, Ms. Goodwin made the trip into Hartford twice during the following week: “We miss the old bridge very much for now one has to transfer from the [street] cars to the boats which now run across the river and then one has to take a car on the other side and it is very inconvenient for they only let so many passengers get on the boats and when there is a crowd one sometimes has to wait for the other boat.”19
While the destruction of the Hartford Bridge by flames added a sense of urgency to the matter of a new crossing, it did not alter the legislative outcome proposed by Buckeley, as some might have hoped. Buckeley’s bill, making the five towns responsible for construction of the new bridge, was enacted soon after the fire. To aid the towns in financing the new span, the bill diverted 50 percent of all taxes paid to the state by any railway company using the new bridge to the towns instead for a period of five years, and 10 percent thereafter. In addition, a second bridge bill was enacted, creating the Connecticut River Bridge & Highway District, to be comprised of the same five towns, which was charged with building a new span up to a maximum cost of $500,000 and with maintaining it once it was completed. Buckeley was appointed as a Hartford representative to the new district and subsequently chosen as its president. Meanwhile, following a recommendation by a superior court judge, the percentages of the cost to be paid by the towns east of the river were lowered considerably, with Hartford now having to bear 79 percent of the total cost, East Hartford 12 percent, and the remaining three towns 3 percent each.20
Even so, the towns east of the river thought the idea unjust that they, and not the state, should be held responsible for the new bridge. In 1895, the town of Glastonbury, in protest, refused to pay even its small 3 percent portion of a five-hundred-dollar assessment for normal bridge repairs, on the grounds that the Bridge & Highway District, whose members were not elected by the town, could not force Glastonbury to maintain a bridge that was not even located within its town boundaries. A month later, the Bridge & Highway District sued Mr. Williams, the treasurer of Glastonbury, in superior court to obtain the fifteen dollars in unpaid funds.
When the superior court upheld the right of the bridge district to tax its member towns, Glastonbury appealed the decision to the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors, where in Morgan G. Buckeley et.al. v. Samuel H. Williams, Treasurer (68Conn131) the action of the lower court was upheld by a vote of three to two. As part of the decision, the court restated in no uncertain terms the legal relationship between the state and its member towns. Contrary to popular belief that the town was the ultimate source of governmental authority in Connecticut, the court confirmed the long-standing legal position that Connecticut towns “have no inherent rights. They have always been the mere creatures of the Colony or the State, with such functions and such only as were conceded or recognized by law.”21 In effect, the state of Connecticut could make any town do its bidding, regardless of existing law, so long as the action had been duly taken by the legislature—to which the town had elected its own representatives. In the most extreme example, the legislature, which had created each town in the first place, could abolish a town’s very existence if it saw fit. With regard to transportation, the decision can be seen as consistent with the tradition of town responsibility for highway improvements, a full decade before MacDonald broke with that tradition by asking for state authority over highway construction.
Following the court decision on the powers of the Bridge & Highway District—and with a temporary wooden bridge now in place across the river, complete with an electric streetcar line—it took eight more years before construction began on a new permanent crossing. The delay was caused first by the need for federal approval of the new span. Because the Connecticut River was considered a navigable waterway as far north as the rapids at Enfield, construction of a new Hartford Bridge required an act of Congress. Congress took up the matter in 1893 and authorized the district to build a drawbridge whose design was to be approved by the secretary of war. However, after much grumbling by those who thought a draw unnecessary since navigation above the bridge was unlikely at best, the law was amended two years later to remove the draw requirement—provided the district agreed to put one in at a later date if so ordered by the secretary of war.22 As a result, the new bridge was built without a draw span.
Adding
