Prentiss - 1874
The Prentiss Covered Bridge is a historic covered bridge in Langdon, New Hampshire. Built ca. 1874, it spans Great Brook, which it carried until it was bypassed by a modern bridge in 1954.
Bridges are known to have stood on the site since ca. 1794 when the town appropriated funds to build a bridge near the mill of Messers Jabez Rockwell and John Prentiss. At 36 feet in length, it is the shortest 19th-century covered bridge built for use on a public roadway in New Hampshire that is still standing. The lattice timbers are held together by Trinnalsor (tree-nails).
It was built by Albert S. Granger and is the third bridge on this site. The date of the first structure is unknown but the second was built in December 1791 on land cleared and settled by John Prentiss in 1785. In 1805, the Cheshire Turnpike Company took over the bridge as part of the turnpike from Canada to Boston. On March 10, 1874, the town voted to raise $1,000 to replace the old structure with a thirty-foot Granger Covered Bridge. It served the community until it was bypassed in 1954 and now serves foot traffic only. It is also known as the Drewsville Bridge. The Langdon Bicentennial Committee will provide the materials for a local volunteer effort to repair both the Prentiss Bridge and the McDermott Bridge.
Of the 400 covered bridges that once stood in the state of New Hampshire, as of 2019 only 54 remain.
The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Located at: N43 09.185 W72 23.604 - WGCB #29-10-07
Photographed in July of 2019.