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Development of the Vertical Lift Bridge: Squire Whipple

to J. A. L. Waddell, 1872–1917

Francis E. Griggs Jr., F.ASCE

Abstract:

The development of canals started in the mid 18th century in England and Europe and in the 1820s in the United States. They

required the design and construction of many bridges to provide canal crossings for carriages, wagons, animal herds, and pedestrians. The

cost of building bridges of masonry or wood to carry roadway traffic high over the towpaths and waterways of canals was very great so

engineers of the day developed bridges that could be moved out of the way when a canal boat was coming through and then moved back

over the canal to provide roadway access. The Dutch developed a type of bascule bridge for many canals, while the British developed

swing or pull back bridges. The swing bridge for narrow canals had a turntable on shore with a short counterweight span over land and

a cantilever span over the canal. This bridge could be worked by hand with a simple crank. The pull back bridges, while not as common,

ran on tracks and had the same type of counterweight span and cantilever span over the canal. On wide canals, as well as on theC&O

Canal in the 1830s, the swing bridges had a central pier on which the turntable was mounted and the bridge cantilevered out on both sides

to the shore when closed, and frequently onto an extended pier parallel to the canal when the bridge was open for canal boat passage. In

the United States the most common bridge on canals and waterways was a side mounted or center mounted swing bridge well into the

20th century. The development of the metal vertical lift bridge can be traced to the late 1840s in England where several small lift spans

were built. After a review of early European spans, this paper covers the period starting in 1872 with Squire Whipple and his Erie Canal

bridges, and terminates in 1917 with Waddell’s Columbia River Bridge.

DOI:

10.1061/ ASCE 1084-0702 2006 11:5 642

CE Database subject headings:

Bridges, lift; Canals; Bridge design; Bridge construction; United States; Europe.

Squire Whipple

Whipple was born in Hardwick, Mass. on September 16, 1804 the

son of a farmer and mill owner. His father designed, built, and ran

a cotton-spinning mill in nearby Greenwich between 1812 and

1817. The family then moved to Springfield Center, N.Y. where

his father ran a farm and built a sawmill, gristmill, and oil mill.

Whipple became a vegetarian as a teenager and would not use

animals as beasts of burden nor eat their ?esh. His father had him

run the mills and continue his schooling. In the 1820s he attended

nearby Hartwick Academy and Fairfield Academy and taught in

the local schools. In 1829–1830 he attended Union College in

Schenectady, N.Y. After graduation he worked on the Baltimore

and Ohio Railroad and the expansion of the Erie Canal. Other

work followed on the New York and Erie Railroad and the North-

ern Railroad in upstate New York. When work was slow he de-

signed and built mathematical instruments and sold them to his

colleagues on the canals and railroads. In 1841 in Utica and Syra-

cuse he designed and built weigh lock scales that could weigh up

to 300-t canal boats. In 1841 he also designed, patented, and built

the first successful iron bridge over the Erie Canal. The bridge

was adopted by the Erie Canal Commissioners as the standard

bridge for the canal. In 1847 he wrote a book entitled A work on

bridge building

in which he described the method of determin-

ing the loads in truss members under various loadings. This was

the first book in the world to present the correct method of deter-

mining loads and thus made it possible for the first time to select

member sizes and materials based upon actual loads the member

would experience in practice. He built many bridges over the

canal in the 1850s and 1860s. He built several iron bridges on a

branch of the New York and Erie Railroad in the late 1840s but

they were all removed when an iron bridge by Nathan Rider

failed. Whipple designed and built a long span double intersection

iron truss for the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad in West Troy,

N.Y. in 1853. This bridge style became the standard truss for long

span railroad bridges well into the 1890s. He went into semire-

tirement after the Civil War. In 1869 he wrote an Appendix to his

Work on bridge building bringing it up to date. He was active in

ASCE meetings and was the first member designated an Honorary

Member after the society restarted in 1868. Shortly after he be-

came involved with lift bridges see Fig. 1 .

Squire Whipple’s Erie Canal Lift Bridges

On December 24, 1872, at the age of 68, Squire Whipple was

granted letters patent for an “Improvement in lift draw bridges.”

His Patent No. was 134,338 and was issued 31 years after his first

patent for the Whipple Independent Arch Truss Bridge. This was

the first patent issued for a lift bridge in the United States and

marked the beginning of the design and construction of this style

bridge.

Whipple built wooden swing bridges over the DesJardins

30 Bradt Rd., Rexford, NY 12148. E-mail: fgriggs@nycap.rr.com

Note. Discussion open until February 1, 2007. Separate discussions

must be submitted for individual papers. To extend the closing date by

one month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Managing

Editor. The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and pos-

sible publication on August 17, 2004; approved on October 5, 2005. This

paper is part of the Journal of Bridge Engineering, Vol. 11, No. 5,