Woods Hole Historical Museum Weekly Dispatch

From the Museum Collection

Have you ever wondered about the yellow gate and gears on the lawn outside Bradley House? Read this history of the Eel Pond bridge

Eel Pond channel was originally crossed by fording the shallow waters at low tide or rowing a skiff across. Elijah Swift, who was one of the founders of the Bar Neck Wharf Company that built whaling ships at the present site of the WHOI dock, Smith and Bigelow buildings, petitioned to have the main road (now Water Street) extended in 1843 and a wooden bridge was built to span the channel.

In 1878, the old wooden bridge was condemned and a second bridge was built of cut granite blocks. Due to the new bridge’s low height, the sturdy Spritsail sailboat became popular because its mast could be lowered to fit under the low span. The second bridge had a keystone that said “Woods Holl 1879” (see explanation below)

In 1912, the second bridge was taken down and the first drawbridge was constructed, which opened in 1914. Steel was used for the structure but it had wooden rails and possibly a wooden deck. During this construction, the channel was dredged to 8 feet, probably at the request of the MBL. This changed Eel Pond from a place for just skiffs and small boats when larger vessels were able to enter the sheltered pond.

The Hurricane of 1938 destroyed the steel drawbridge and left it in a slightly “up” position. An enterprising youngster of the village earned money for a while rowing people across the channel.

The first thing that was done to enable people to pass over the mangled bridge was to construct a wooden ramp on the Great Harbor side of the bridge opening.

Then after the bridge was removed from the channel crossing, a narrow temporary footbridge was built across the channel. Some months later a tall awkward-looking wooden footbridge was put up, called the “Sky Sidewalk.” It resembled a roller-coaster and ran from the area near what is now the Cap’n Kidd to what is now Redfield parking lot. The extra height was to allow boats to pass beneath. This was replaced with another steel drawbridge in 1940.

In 1971, the bridge needed repairs, and enterprising WHOI engineer Al Vine and his colleagues rigged a “tire ferry” to carry people across the channel.

Finally, in 2009 the present bridge replacement was completed, which is how the museum got the aforementioned gears and gate. During construction, yet another walkway was built along with a temporary bridge tender’s shack on stilts. In 2012 during Hurricane Sandy, the bridge machine room flooded and destroyed the two 15-horsepower electric motors causing the bridge to be inoperable for many months. Once or twice a week, the Falmouth Department of Public Works would send about three men down to manually crank open the bridge, which took about 30 minutes to open and 30 minutes to close. This was an extremely labor intensive operation and would wear out a worker in just a few minutes when another man would have to relieve him. Since the bridge has been fixed, the concrete foundation of the cellar has been raised and two big pumps have been added to avoid future catastrophic flooding occurs again.

This granite block from the second (stone arched) bridge is located in front of the Community Hall. It says “Woods Holl 1879”. Joseph Story Fay was fascinated with the term “hole” and wrote a booklet that discussed the theory that “hole” was “holl ,” a Norse term for hill. He was convinced that Vikings had been in the area. Fay also persuaded the Post Office to change the spelling from “Woods Hole” to “Wood’s Holl” in 1877. It was changed back to “Woods Hole” in 1896 after Fay’s death.

Thanks to current bridge tender, Tom Mountford, for his contributions to this Dispatch

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Woods Hole Historical Museum 579 Woods Hole Road (P.O. Box 185) Woods Hole, MA 02543 Phone: 508-548-7270 Email: [email protected]