Bucks County's Chain Bridge in Wrightstown was a forerunner of the Golden Gate Bridge

I remember driving through Wrightstown in the 1980s to see famed Chain Bridge on Second Street Pike between Richboro and Penns Park. The Neshaminy Creek span reportedly was the forerunner of the Golden Gate Bridge in California’s Bay Area where I was born. The span was on a tiny scale, of course. It also was the only one ever built entirely within Bucks County.

Unfortunately, I found no such bridge at the river crossing. Big disappointment. The existing bridge is a modern cement and iron structure common throughout the county these days. Nothing special.

The original bridge was unique and came to identify a small hamlet of bungalows, a summer camp for kids, a fanciful playground for the grandchildren of a wealthy Philadelphia industrialist, a riverside tavern and a saw mill built by John Thompson who was George Washington’s wagon master in the American Revolution. Today the mill no longer exists though a large red barn survives. The tavern closed years ago, now the home of a model railroad club. Camp Onas for kids relocated to Ottsville in Upper Bucks, and the playground for Martin Moister’s grandchildren lies idle.

I recently scoured the creek bed, looking for some evidence of Chain Bridge but found none. To determine what happened to our mini Golden Gate, I climbed aboard the Way, Way Back Machine that I use frequently. I set the dial for 222 years ago – to 1793 and the city of Uniontown on the opposite side of the state. That’s where Irish immigrant James Finley, a wealthy municipal judge, envisioned building a bridge over Jacobs Run to link his town with Greensburg to the north. Not a covered “kissing” bridge favored throughout Pennsylvania, mind you. Rather something never tried before in the commonwealth – a 70-foot-long suspension span made from wrought iron chain links. Judge Jimmy modeled his dream after sketches of European suspension bridges he saw in the local library.

Built in the course of a year in 1801, the Jacobs Run bridge was a marvel, drawing national attention for its all-weather durability. The judge patented his invention. Soon contractors built dozens elsewhere. The crown jewel went up at the Falls of the Schuylkill River outside Philadelphia in 1808, followed by one over the Lehigh River in Easton in 1811.

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Bucks County hopped aboard in 1809. A bridge was needed over Neshaminy Creek on Second Street Pike (today’s Route 232) on the border between Wrightstown and Northampton. In Colonial days, you needed a raft, a horse or a farm wagon to make the rocky crossing. Either that or wade across. Periodic floods, however, made that impossible and dangerous.

The Finley design required a single, stone support pier in the middle to the river. The bridge cost $5,500 (about $130,000 today). Most thought it would save money in the long run, being more durable than the county’s 50-plus covered bridges.

Chain Bridge was state of the art. Heavy, wrought iron chain links created a strong, rust-proof span. The links were enormous, ranging from 3 feet to 11-feet in length. Perpendicular iron rods connected the overhead chains to the roadway platform.

As it turned out, our “golden gate” didn’t last long. A record-setting flood wrecked it in 1832, forcing its demolition and replacement with a far less costly covered bridge that would succumb twice in future years. In the end, none of Judge Jimmy’s suspension bridges survived except one in Massachusetts. Township facsimiles using wire rather than chain links exist in Bucks – a footbridge over the Delaware River linking Lumberville with Bulls Island State Park in New Jersey anda highway bridge upstream in Bridgeton to Milford, N.J. Memories, however, are all that linger for Chain Bridge that once held so much promise within Bucks County.

Sources include”Place Names in Bucks County Pennsylvania” by George MacReynolds published in 1942; “Finley’s Wonder on Jacob’s Creek” by Ryan Gordon at the Pennsylvania Center of the Book at Penn Statue University, and “Chain Bridge, Pennsylvania” on the web at pennsylvaniagenealogy.org/bucks/chain-bridge-pennsylvania.htm.

Carl LaVO can be reached at carllavo0@gmail.com. His two-volume “Bucks County Adventures” series is available at book stores in Newtown, Doylestown and Lahaska.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks County's Chain Bridge was forerunner of the Golden Gate Bridge