Quick! How many links to local history can you name for Knechts Covered Bridge in the Upper Bucks community of Springtown? Tick tick tick…. Let me enumerate.
Musical tribute: The 150-year-old bridge made of oak, hemlock and pine marked its birthday in April with a concert at the span by the Palisades High School Band. The band played famed composer Robert Sheldon’s “The Red Covered Bridge”, an inspirational homage to a covered span in Illinois wrecked by an errant tractor-trailer driver but being rebuilt. Guest conductor was Scott Watson, Sheldon’s friend and esteemed Allentown music educator and composer.
A giant’s idea: The 110-foot-long Knecht span is named for 450-pound county Commissioner John Knecht who ordered its construction in 1873 over rushing Cook’s Creek in Springfield Township near his home. Knecht’s name is on the bridge.
Magnificent dozen: Fifty covered bridges once served Bucks in the 1800s. That number has dwindled to 12 today, each seen as a historical treasure. Seven are owned by county government – Cabin Run (Plumstead, built in 1871), Frankenfield (Tinicum, 1872), Moods (East Rockhill, 1874), Pine Valley (New Britain, 1842), Uhlerstown (Tinicum, 1857), Van Sant (Solebury, 1875) and Knechts bridge.
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Indian betrayal: Knechts bridge is believed to mark the site where Edward Marshall and James Yates rested on Sept. 19, 1737, during their infamous “running walk” from Wrightstown to Jim Thorpe in the Pocono Mountains. The line of the run set the western boundary, a land grab of 1,200 square miles taken from native Lenape Indians. That included the entire Lehigh Valley which William Penn’s sons subdivided and sold to European settlers. Years later, the natives took vengeance by killing Marshall’s wife and two children in Tinicum Township.
Railroad stop: Knechts Bridge was a passenger stop for 30 years beginning in 1901 for the Quakertown & Eastern Railroad with service to Philadelphia.
Lassie comes home: The famous collie of literature and Hollywood movies is buried at author Eric Knight’s home about a mile from the bridge.
Arson survivor: In 2007, five teenagers, including three former firefighters, were arrested and pleaded guilty to trying to burn down Knechts bridge. Since then, a fire alarm has been installed thanks to the Bucks County Covered Bridge Society. Two other covered bridges succumbed to arsonists and were rebuilt — Moods and Schofield Ford Covered Bridge in Tyler State Park, Newtown Township.
Aside from historical footnotes, Knechts Covered Bridge is exceptionally beautiful in its rural setting. It’s where you can soak up history and astounding scenery amid winding farm roads that intersect at the span. For folks in Springtown, it’s priceless Americana. Three sixth-grade girls at Palisades Middle School recently produced a documentary on the county’s covered bridges that won the Pennsylvania State History Award. Olivia Bowen, Ana Chilton and Gabrielle Holmes visited all 12 bridges in a guided bus tour hosted by the covered bridge society. The birthday celebration at the Knechts span came out of it. The ceremony on April 20 involved the art, music, engineering, and social studies departments of Palisades High.
For their interest in local history, students and supporters in the Palisades School District deserve accolades for celebrating an ancient wonder that opened to traffic in the year Ulysses S. Grant was U.S. president, Levi’s jeans came into existence and P.T. Barnum’s “Greatest Show on Earth” circus debuted in New York City. What a legacy!
On a personal note: Visiting Knechts bridge rekindles thoughts of my third-generation grandfather. Henry Grow, a Montgomery County architect, pioneered covered bridges in Southeastern Pennsylvania in the mid-1840s. Mormon leader Brigham Young hired him to design and build the famous Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City in 1862. It’s a doomed structure capable of holding 12,000 people and considered at the time the largest hall in the world unsupported by columns. Like Knecht’s bridge, interlaced wooden beams and planks made it possible.
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Sources include “138-year-old covered bridge gets protection” by Hilary Bentman published in this newspaper in 2011; Mercer Museum’s history of covered bridges on the web atwww.bucksbridges.com, and help from Donna V. Holmes, director of Community Relations & Development, Palisades School District. A performance of “The Red Covered Bridge” can be found on YouTube athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5SWwIAiIWU
Carl LaVO can be reached atcarllavo0@gmail.com
