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The Bridgewright James F. Tasker
James Tasker was my cousin. Well, sort of. Technically, he was my second cousin, six times removed. Our common ancestor, William Tasker, was born in England around 1655. He was one of New Hampshire’s earliest settlers, arriving in Dover in 1675. The Taskers settled throughout the seacoast area. James Frederick Tasker was born about…
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The Bridgewrights Broughton
The Broughton family arrived in Conway sometime around 1794 when Mark Broughton is included in an inventory. The family received one of the first land grants in Conway and established a dairy farm on the south side of the river on East Side Road. The farm, known as the Hill, remained in the Broughton…
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The Numbers
Covered bridges worldwide are given a number by the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges (NSPCB). For bridges in the United States, these numbers delineate first the state, then the county, then a number. For example, the Meriden Bridge in Plainfield is numbered NH/29-10-08. Historic bridges that have been reconstructed, such as…
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The Bridgewrights Berry
The Berry family, Jacob E. and his two sons Jacob H. and Horace W., constructed several bridges in the Mount Washington Valley between 1850 and 1885; a handful of which remain today. The patriarch of the Berry family was Jacob Emerson Berry. He was born on September 10, 1802, in Denmark, Maine; a small…
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The Docents
Much of my covered bridge research has been what you might expect it would be. Lots of reading. Lots of scouring town records, rifling through vertical files at historical societies, reading books in libraries, deciphering engineering reports, and corresponding with stakeholders via email. Lots of documents. Lots of sitting around. Visiting a covered bridge…
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The Bridgewrights Paddleford
Peter Paddleford and his son, Philip Henry, left an indelible impact on covered bridge building in New England, particularly in New Hampshire. Peter H. Paddleford was born in 1785 in the Upper Valley town of Enfield, New Hampshire, about fifteen miles from the Connecticut River. Peter was the fourth of ten children born to…
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The Podcast
Hello covered bridge people! Yes, I know I just published a 288 page book about New Hampshire’s covered bridges. But believe me when I tell you that everything I learned didn’t fit in the book! My journey to research these covered bridges put me in contact with so many interesting members of the bridge…
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The Gratitude Chapter
The second chapter in Covered Bridges of New Hampshire, following the table of contents and my rambling preface, is a chapter entitled simply, Gratitude. My publisher and I had several back and forth conversations about both the length and the placement of this chapter. Some books feature a gratitude section tucked away in the…
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The Book Arrival
I saw my actual book today. Not a Word doc. Not a printer’s proof. Not loose pages with edits. Not a PDF. The real book. The truck from the midwest was scheduled to arrive on Thursday. On that day, I felt like Navin R. Johnson when the phone books came out. “I’m somebody now!…
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The Book Launch
As I write this, Covered Bridges of New Hampshire is being printed. Somewhere in middle America, my words and photographs are being superimposed onto 288 full-color pages and bound together. In a few weeks, the boxes will arrive and it will be time to celebrate. I’m excited to share that the book launch event…
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