Blacksmith Shop Covered Bridge
Cornish, New Hampshire, USA
New Hampshire
Highway Dept. Classification:
Bridge #21
Site of late
archeological ruins, evidently old mills, ranging from perhaps 17th to 19th
centuries during which time use of water power gave rise to a self-dependant
middle class with excellent methods of self-sufficiency. Now the ruins
beside the old covered bridge serve to remind us of the lost sylvan lifestyle
of the 17th to early 20th centuries. Two covered bridges survive on this
watercourse, this one and one further downstream, the Dingleton Hill bridge.
The Blacksmith Shop Covered Bridge.
A drawing by Paul Hall.
Harmonica by Paul playing a verse of "Oh Shenandoah" (loads as background on explorer browsers)
Click to return to High Water 96 Detail
Notes from the artist :
To the left in the drawing you'll see that I depicted what's left of a structure, now just some large stones still in place. I'm not an archeologist, but without any more information, it's very safe to conclude that the evidence of these remains points to the late eighteenth century efforts to harness the flow of this stream. The people of those times had something we sorely lack and that was the ability to procure a middle class existence with little or no help from an external specialized labor force.
Click here to return to Highwater 96 Detail.
This is one of two covered bridges still standing on this waterway. Down stream is the Dingleton Hill Covered Bridge, once built for schoolchildren to get over the gorge to school from the Dingleton Hill area, still nice farm, grazing and timber land on a large hill rising very high and looking far into neighboring Vermont with a spectacular view.
Down the road from the Blacksmith and the Dingleton, if you round the corner as you get to highway twelve A just past the Twelve and One Half Percent Solution convenience store (which sometimes sells mugs with my covered bridge drawings on them, but you have to ask, since he uses them for pencil holders behind the cash register), you'll come to the largest two lane double span covered bridge in the world, the "Cornish-Windsor" Covered Bridge.
The scene above was a drawing I did from a photograph I took back in 1997. During a three-week period, I set out to try to photograph all the covered bridges in New Hampshire, but, because of my limited budget and time, I only got fifty of them. Many of the bridges I had to locate using a bit of light detective work. Also, because I didn't have a digital camera then, I was limited to one picture of each bridge because of my budget, so I had to make each shot count. I used two 25 millimeter regular film cameras, duplicating each shot with a second a yard apart, the second serving as a backup and also, if the two are superimposed, they make a three-dimensional view.
Photographing this bridge wasn't easy. I finally found a decent spot on a large rock in the middle of the small river which at the time was high and roaring with rapids. I got out there safely, moving carefully over the rocks on my tummy, hands and feet. After I took the picture, I returned to my crawling style to get to the other shore and came face to face with a cute little pink newt who just stood his ground in front of my nose.
"Well, hello there, little buddy!" I said softly, grinning ear to ear. That was one of the high spots of my photo shoot and to this day I can visualize that cute little fella in my memory. I sure appreciated that encounter. There he was in the middle of this roaring body of water like it was nothing. From that perspective I was able to participate in the enjoyment of his little universe on that beautiful, sunny day.
When I got to the other side, in the thick underbrush, I found the rim of an old wagon wheel from the 19th century. I brought it back and leaned it against a tree in the yard of the tiny plot of land the mobile home was situated on beside a New Hampshire forest. Click here to have a look at it.
You owe it to yourself to really just get out there and enjoy some of this beautiful world of ours, a part of the real universe far from the contrivance of humanity. I know things are going on just about everywhere to put a damper on that beauty but still and all, it's out there. It's as I said to someone once who was really going through it, "The world may have it's problems, but it does have some spectacular views".
I went to the school in the island of time, in the class where I learned to read the rocks and the animals and the stars in the skies and life's strange mysteries. It's a tiny little island in forever, call it "time". You read the books so written in the stars and in the life. Success and also failure of all the struggles there, and how you, too, must struggle in order to prepare.
Folks think time is all there is and they call it "life" and "style". But life is not possessions and style usurps the smile of love's so silent teachings in Time's so tiny isle.
Click here to return to Flowers by a New Hampshire Forest, Gallery Three. / charc100Image05copy.
Click here to return to "Flowers beside a New Hampshire Forest, Gallery Nine".
Click on thumbnail to see the digital art used in this page's background, "Image101pastel2".
Click any of the following to go there:
The Paul Hall art literature directory
Covered Bridge table of contents
More details on the Blacksmith Covered Bridge from the New Hampshire Transportation Department
Copyright © 2003 [Paul Hall]. All rights reserved.
email address: art@paulhallart.com
Cornish, New Hampshire, USA
New Hampshire
Highway Dept. Classification:
Bridge #21