About
The Fuller Covered Bridge, also known as the Blackfalls Covered Bridge, carries Fuller Bridge Road over Black Falls Brook on the north side of Montgomery village, just north of Black Falls Road. It is a single-span Town lattice bridge about 50 feet long, built in 1890, and it is open to vehicles.
History
Brothers Sheldon and Savannah Jewett, who are credited with Montgomery's other surviving covered bridges, built it in 1890. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 23, 1974. It was restored in 1981, and at Christmas 1982 a logging truck destroyed the roof with its loading beam. The trusses were braced over the winter and repaired the following year. A flood in 1997 threatened to wash the bridge out, and in 2000 Blow & Cote of Morrisville carried out a complete reconstruction.
Design
The Town lattice truss is a web of crisscrossed timber planks fastened where they cross. The Jewetts used standardized dimensions on their bridges except for length. The Fuller bridge has a metal gable roof, vertical board siding, a wooden plank deck and mortared stone abutments, one of them later faced in concrete.
Visiting
The bridge is across from the Montgomery post office and still carries regular town traffic. It has a 3-ton load limit and 11 feet of clearance.
Sources: Fuller Covered Bridge, Wikipedia, Montgomery's Covered Bridges: Icons of Vermont's Rustic Beauty, Jeff-Foliage
Photo: Mfwills, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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