The Dingleton Hill Area
A Place of Special Treasures

I was on my way to get a card for my 66mh computer's tape drive.  At that time the 66 was just beginning obsolescence.  The tape drive needed a card to assure glitches didn't occur during the critical archival process.

At the base of the road whose name I have yet to find out, the only thing the driver tends to see, at first encounter at least, is the used car garage and the convenience store.  I missed all the covered bridges and the other things that first time because I was so absorbed with the beauty of the forests on the hillside to my right.

But later as I began to explore, I found this little area quite rich in items not only of interest but also of historic significance.  The first thing I came across on my next trip to Lebanon was the thing I missed the time before because I was looking at the beautiful trees (and watching the road, of course!), and that was the longest double-span covered bridge in the world with only one support in the middle of the river.

The Cornish-Windsor Bridge. 
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And if it ever had a name, the name is lost in it's variegated past.  Now they just call it the Cornish-Windsor bridge.  A place where, years later, Jen and I got married.  The preacher said we were the first couple in the history of the bridge to get married there.  That's how busy it is.  My mother in law almost got knocked down by a red pickup truck.

Then there's the rest of the covered bridges in the area. Nearby to the Cornish-Windsor are two more: the Dingleton Hill and the Blacksmith Shop.  But also in the area is the preserved studios of the famous 19th century. sculptor, St.Gaudins, and the Blow-me-down covered bridge and mill.  Further a field is the Meriden Bridge which is accessed from a dirt road series from West Claremont through the Dingleton Bridge, over Dingleton Hill and past St.Gaudins'.

    Top:  Number 23, the Blow-Me-Down bridge, Cornish.  Bottom: Number 24, the Meriden bridge, Plainfield.
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From my personal investigation of the pre-industrial era ruins just upstream of the Blacksmith Shop Bridge and a bit of research on the Dingleton I came to the conclusion that the roadways themselves built in the twentieth century, the paved roads, actually have their causal roots and existence centered around seven and eighteenth century water power and contributed to the industrial and economic demise of the region as industry and economy moved into electro-nuclear power.

But the roads still lead to the historic, and this New Hampshire-Vermont region is a part of the cradle of  Euro-American Civilization, going back not more than about four hundred years.  In fact, covered bridges and mills are the tip of the iceberg of an era in human development where a normal individual could actually create a middle class existence for himself in a primitive environment.

Blacksmith Shop Bridge.
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Dingleton Hill Bridge.
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It's my opinion that these historic landmarks are but the tip of the historic mother lode in the region.  Besides that there is the historic Connecticut River running nearby which no doubt served as a prime transportation source in the Colonial Days.