The refurbishment was completed this month, and the bridge reopened to traffic crossing Lewis Creek from Roscoe Road in East Charlotte. Although the bridge required work to keep it safe for vehicles, the historic value to the community has also been restored.
“At first I was apprehensive,” said Melrose Huff, who lives near the bridge and is a volunteer with the Charlotte Conservation Commission. “But when I learned the project manager was a seventh-generation Vermonter from Fairlee, which has seven covered bridges, I knew it was in good hands.”
Huff, who was responsible for much of the initial legwork needed to get the bridge’s reconstruction underway, was referring to project manager Mark Sargent from the Vermont Agency of Transportation.
Sargent said the reconstruction cost about $650,000, most of which came from federal funding the agency receives for bridge repairs. The bridge was suffering from rot that had been found as early 2013.
The bridge’s style is known as a Burr truss or Burr arch. According to the president of the Charlotte Historical Society, Dan Cole, the bridge is believed to have been built by the Edgerton family and named after the Seguin family.
Members of the Seguin family from throughout Vermont attended the celebration.
“Something like this would often take its name from family names in the area,” Cole said. “The bridge was an important place.”
“The continuity of having the bridge here is important for our historic past,” Cole said. “It’s a little connection to the cultural past of our state.”
Vermont has more than 200 covered bridges with 100 on public roads, said John Weaver, an engineer for the Agency of Transportation. He said the Seguin Bridge retained 60 percent of its original truss arches throughout the project, and any rotted wood was replaced using Southern yellow pine. Most covered bridges in Vermont were built originally with spruce, fir or pine.
“They used what was around,” Weaver said.
Restoring the Seguin Bridge was no easy feat, and the project went two months beyond its original estimated completion date. Posts and beams needed individual inspection, and the bridge roof needed to be removed without damaging its surroundings, including a large oak tree near the creek’s shore.
“Removing the roof was quite a dance,” Weaver said. “Covered bridges need constant maintenance to be kept up to date.”
The Seguin Bridge has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1974 and is one of two covered bridges in the Charlotte area. The other is the Quinlan Bridge, which also spans Lewis Creek.
According to Conservation Commission Chair Amos Baehr, nearly 80 community members came to celebrate the bridge’s restoration.
“It ties us to the site of several working mills and the residents that supported that industry and the bridge tied the town together,” Baehr said. “It’s not only a bridge — it’s a bridge back to our working landscape.”
