Hillhouse Avenue Bridge
The original Hillhouse Avenue Bridge was one of fourteen bridges provided by the Farmington Canal Company to carry city streets across the canal. The wooden bridge at this site rested on abutments of unmortared rubble. The New Haven construction firm of Punderson & Atwater built the bridge in 1829.
In 1848 the canal was replaced by a railroad. Portions of the canal rubble abutments were rebuilt and raised using stepped square cut stone. The railroad era bridge was maintained by the New Haven & Northampton Company until 1887 and then by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company until it was replaced in 1911. This early twentieth century bridge was constructed of steel "T" beams with a wooden deck and sidewalks on each side supported on cut stone abutments, concrete and canal era dry rubble masonry wingwalls.
In 2009 a vehicular bridge and two pedestrian bridges were erected on this site. They carry Hillhouse Avenue over what is now the Farmington Canal Heritage Greenway while preserving the fascia from the reconstructed stone abutments of the earlier bridges.
Marker is on Hillhouse Avenue when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
