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Structure Officially Opened From Stockton to Centre Bridge PARADE ACROSS SPAN CENTRE BRIDGE, Pa. July 18. Although less than a thousand feet apart two communities that have been separated for several years because of the fact that the bridge connecting the two places had burned down, were again united at noon Saturday offi cially when the new $280,000 bridge across the Delaware River between this Bucks county hamlet and the bor ough of Stockton, NJ., was dedicated and opened to all travel. A parade of automobiles led by sev eral representatives of the Pennsyl vania-New Jersey bridge commission who erected the new structure, fea tured the opening. Speech-making was done away with other than formal greetings from the chief engineer who erected the bridge and the welcome of the residents of Stockton, N. J., ex tended to their Bucks county neigh bors. The new structure, of steel and re inforced concrete, is close to 900 feet long and replaces a wooden bridge that was burned when struck by lightning on July 22, 1923. Both States, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, divided the expense in building the new bridge that completes the link of a new and short highway system from Bucks county points and the Old York Road section of suburban Philadelphia to New York City. The old bridge over the Delaware at this point was completed in 1814. In the winter of 1816-17 a stone toll house was built at the approach of the Bridge. The new structure is free of toll. On January 8, 1841, in the greatest freshet up until that time known along the Delaware, two piers, three spans and the toll house, all on the New Jersey side of the river, were washed away. George Fell, of Centre Bridge, was carried down with the wreckage, upon which he passed safely under the bridge across the Delaware at Lambertville, four miles below here. An old record says that the water was so nearly up to the bridge that Fell’s clothing was torn and the skin scraped from his back, although he lay at upon some floating timbers. He was at last rescued by a man in a boat, and landed near the spot where Wash ington and his Continental troops crossed the Delaware at Washington Crossing, Pa. Though telegraph and telephone were unknown at that time, it ap pears to have been known on both sides of the river that Fell had gone down with the bridge. A man liv ing in Stockton at the time told Elmer Robertson, Stockton historian some years ago that when later in the day Well had been drawght back to his home in Centre Bridge, people in Stockton heard the cheering above the roar of the flood and knew that he had been rescued. In June, 1862, another high freshet occurred in the Delaware, caused by the breaking of several dams on the Lehigh river. This freshet was re markable for the very large number of logs that passed down the river. Some of the logs were sawed into building lumber and there are houses remain ing in Stockton today in good condit ion, built out of the timber that floated down the river in the 1862 freshet. Another freshet occured on October 10, 1903, that surpassed all others, the water reaching the Stockton Hotel, several blocks away from the river. Centre Bridge was the only bridge left standing in serviceable condition between Trenton and Easton. On the early morning of May 11, 192%, John Perry and Louis Di Socdi, while attempting to cross the bridge with a heavily loaded truck, broke through the flooring of the second span from the New Jersey side. Perry escaped by jumping, but Di Sodi fell with the truck into seven feet of water 30 feet below. He was rescued by members of the Stockton Fire De (Continued on Page Four)
Newspaper Details
Bristol Courier
Bristol, Pennsylvania, US
Mon, Jul 18, 1927
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Joe D.
USA 08 Jul 2026
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