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the bridge are made up of three iron wires which, taken together, have a diameter of 3/8". From time to time, vertical iron wires are hung from these curves. These in turn support the iron wires which carry the deck 16 feet above the water. The planks of the footpath are 2' long, 3" wide and 1" thick. 8 iron wires attached on either side, serve as guide rails.
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height of about 50 feet from the water; to the main wires are fastened, at equal distances, perpendicular wires to which are affixed pieces of wood, on which the planks of the footway rest; and by another wire on each side, which keep the perpendiculars steady, there is a very secure railway made to assist the passengers in crossing the river.
462:
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Although Finley patented his Falls of
Schuylkill bridge and publicized it widely, it was not a success: "Part of the superstructure broke down in September, 1810, while a drove of cattle was crossing it, and in January, 1816, the bridge fell down, occasioned by the great weight of snow which remained
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The bridge of iron wire erected over the
Schuylkill near Philadelphia is also worth describing as it is the very first to have been built in this manner. It is attached to one of the window mullions of an iron wire factory on the one bank, and to a great tree on the other. The two curves which carry
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Watson's plan and elevation document the bridge's structure. The two main cables were anchored about 50 feet above the water to the top story of White's manufactory on the east shore and to boughs of a tree on the west. Twenty-four pairs of suspender cables (hangers), about 16 feet apart, dropped
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The principle on which this very curious work is constructed, I look on as original; The horizontal line or footway is suspended on the segment of a circle made by two iron wires, carried across the river, and fastened at each end to the
Manufactory on one side, and to a Tree on the other, at the
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bridge, White & Hazard erected a curious temporary bridge across the river by suspending wires from the top windows of their mill to large trees on the western side, which wires hung in a curve, and from which were suspended other wires supporting a floor of boards eighteen inches wide. The
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length of the floor of this bridge was four hundred feet , without intermediate support. The entire cost was one hundred and twenty-five dollars. They charged a toll of one cent per passenger, and when, from that revenue, the cost of the structure was realized they made the structure free.
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The length of the footway is 407 feet the width of it 18 inches—Mr White informed me, he had placed 45 men on it at the same time, & that he thinks 50 men might cross at a time, if they walked steady. Such a flying bridge as this might easily be made out of two five inch
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White & Hazard had two mills on the western side of the river,—one a saw-mill, the other a mill for making white lead. The wire-mills were on the east side of the river. There were two buildings at one time. On one of the occasions of the breaking down of the
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A British Army officer visiting
Philadelphia in 1816, Captain Joshua Rowley Watson, saw potential for military use in what he called the "Spider Bridge". He recorded its length as 407 feet (124 m), drew an elevation and plan of it, and described it in his diary:
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at mid-river, about twice the height of a man, functioned as the center suspender cable where the main cables dipped to the level of the deck. At each shore the narrow walkway was at ground level; over the river it was suspended about 16 feet above the water.
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Mid-19th-century photographs of Falls of
Schuylkill show two- and three-story buildings lining the river's banks. One of these may be White & Hazard's rolling mill, the building to which the Spider Bridge's main cables were anchored.
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in 1808. It was among the earliest suspension bridges erected in the United States. To supply materials for its construction, ironmakers Josiah White and
Erskine Hazard built a rolling mill along the river near its eastern abutment.
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spanned between the floor beams, creating a substructure that was decked with 2-foot planks. A pair of horizontal wires strung from shore to shore tied together the suspender cables and floor beams, and a second pair functioned as
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15th. There is at this spot a manufactory of Wire, the proprietor, a very ingenious man, has constructed a Spider bridge across the
Schuylkill to enable his workmen to go to & from their work—his name is White, a quaker.
321:]; the vibration is great, and to a person not used to such sort of motion, the walking on it is attended with difficulty. We met Mr White the inventor and proprietor. It communicates with his Wire & Nail Manufactory.
659:
This detail is mistranslated or misunderstood. According to Watson's elevation and plan, the main cables were anchored to the stone wall of White & Hazard's manufactory through two windows, not anchored to a
36:
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Notice was given that only eight persons would be allowed on it at a time, but 'A Visitor,' writing to the
Gazette, said that he 'saw thirty people on it at a time, including rude boys running backward and
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There is no exact record of how long the Spider Bridge remained open, although it was probably less than a year. A wooden covered bridge, built upon the Chain Bridge's
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452:(built 1853–56, still in use) is at the approximate location of the Chain Bridge. One of the buildings on the far shore may be White & Hazard's rolling mill.
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image shows a 200-foot span bridge. Strickland's elevation also was published with the caption: "Chain Bridge over the
Schuylkill at the Falls." Jackson, p. 412.
259:, five miles downstream. Josiah White seems to have used the Chain Bridge as the model for his wire footbridge, substituting iron wire for Finley's iron chains.
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short time, so as to enable a body of troops to secure an opposite shore, and the whole of the apparatus might be so contrived that two wagons would carry it.
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anchored the bridge to rocks in the river and on both shores. Another pair of guy-wires anchored the tree to other trees behind it. A
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Strickland's elevation has been misidentified as Finley's Jacob's Creek Bridge (1801), but that bridge had a single span of 70 feet.
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The collapse of the Chain Bridge was a great inconvenience for the village of Falls of
Schuylkill, with the nearest bridge being
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239:
468:"View from Laurel Hill Cemetery, Phila." The Spider Bridge was located upstream of the Chain Bridge, somewhere between the
206:. Though a modest and temporary structure, it is thought to have been the first wire-cable suspension bridge in the world.
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Falls of Schuylkill was outside the city limits until 1854, when Philadelphia County merged into the City of Philadelphia.
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Early History of Falls of Schuylkill, Manayunk, Schuylkill and Lehigh Navigation Companies, Fairmount Waterworks, Etc.
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588:(Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, 1869), as quoted in J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott,
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Peterson, Charles E. (March 22, 1986). "The Spider Bridge, A Curious Work at the Falls of Schuylkill, 1816".
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Transitions in Engineering: Guillaume Henri Dufour and the Early 19th Century Cable Suspension Bridges
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A bridge of this type can be erected in 15 days in summer, the total cost being less than 300 dollars.
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Captain Watson's Travels in America: The Sketchbooks and Diary of Joshua Rowley Watson, 1772–1818
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The exact location of the wire footbridge has not been identified, but it was between the
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Workshop of the World: A Selective Guide to the Industrial Archeology of Philadelphia
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636:(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997). pp. 57–59, 29–96, fig. 30.
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from the main cables and attached to the ends of the wooden floor beams. Wooden
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in 2010, with Reading Railroad Bridge (left) and Falls Bridge (far right).
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July 1st. I crossed the Wire Bridge, before discribed [
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592:(Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co., 1884), vol. 1, p. 584.
728:(Harrisburg: National Historical Association, Inc., 1931).
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218:"View of the Chain Bridge invented by James Finley Esq."
677:(1820), vol. 2, pp. 182–83, as quoted in Tom F. Peters,
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published a description of the wire footbridge in 1820:
614:(Wallingford, PA: Oliver Evans Press, 1990), pp. 11-25.
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was an iron-wire footbridge erected in 1816 over the
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Josiah White's wire bridge over the Schuylkill River
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Demolished buildings and structures in Pennsylvania
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699:Fred Perry Powers, "Early Schuylkill Bridges",
234:, an iron-chain suspension bridge designed by
448:, from the western side of the river. The
508:List of crossings of the Schuylkill River
681:, (Boston: Birkouser, 1987), pp. 34–36.
528:Canal History and Technology Proceedings
525:
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785:Demolished bridges in the United States
632:Kathleen A. Foster and Kenneth Finkel,
247:on it, and a decayed piece of timber".
134:1 foot 6 inches (0.46 m)
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726:Encyclopedia of Philadelphia, Volume 2
417:(built 1853–56, still in use) and the
703:, vol. 1, no. 11, (1914), pp. 306–08.
367:the total weight of the iron wire is
760:Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks
675:Histoire de la Navigation Interieure
192:Spider Bridge at Falls of Schuylkill
23:Spider Bridge at Falls of Schuylkill
800:1816 establishments in Pennsylvania
795:Former toll bridges in Pennsylvania
503:Chain Bridge at Falls of Schuylkill
232:Chain Bridge at Falls of Schuylkill
64:Chain Bridge at Falls of Schuylkill
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770:Pedestrian bridges in Pennsylvania
765:Suspension bridges in Pennsylvania
590:History of Philadelphia, 1609–1884
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775:Bridges over the Schuylkill River
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160:Josiah White & Erskine Hazard
724:Joseph Jackson, "Chain Bridge,"
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354:Joseph Louis Etienne Cordier
16:Bridge in Pennsylvania, U.S.
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755:Bridges completed in 1816
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716:"Finley's Chain Bridge,"
375:that of the woodwork is
780:Bridges in Philadelphia
470:Reading Railroad Bridge
450:Reading Railroad Bridge
415:Reading Railroad Bridge
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383:that of the nails is
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126:407 feet (124 m)
53:40.00696°N 75.19285°W
701:Philadelphia History
650:, from Google books.
566:Jackson, pp. 411–12.
474:Falls Covered Bridge
454:Laurel Hill Cemetery
741:from Bridgemeister.
584:Charles V. Hagner,
446:Falls of Schuylkill
423:Roosevelt Boulevard
240:Falls of Schuylkill
58:40.00696; -75.19285
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224:William Strickland
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610:John Bowie, ed.,
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210:Chain bridge
204:Pennsylvania
200:Philadelphia
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123:Total length
95:Pennsylvania
91:Philadelphia
198:, north of
56: /
30:Coordinates
749:Categories
514:References
341:guyed mast
333:guardrails
110:Footbridge
62: (
43:75°11′34″W
40:40°00′25″N
534:: 243–59.
337:guy-wires
280:abutments
274:forward.'
118:Iron wire
497:See also
405:Location
394:4702 lb
378:3380 lb
370:1314 lb
181:Location
142:of spans
115:Material
710:Sources
662:mullion
348:Cordier
306:hausers
150:History
77:Crosses
685:
391:total
335:. Six
328:joists
286:Watson
173:Closed
165:Opened
107:Design
97:, U.S.
87:Locale
386:8 lb
264:Falls
176:1817?
131:Width
683:ISBN
310:very
230:The
168:1816
425:'s
318:sic
140:No.
751::
530:.
433:.
202:,
93:,
532:v
145:1
66:)
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