This area of Pittsford was originally known as Pittsford Mills, where development began in the late 18th century as two waterfalls on Furnace Brook supplied power for gristmills, sawmills, and an oil mill. The village grew into an industrial hub, and the mills' success attracted settlers who built houses and opened businesses on both sides of the river. A bandstand stood on the triangular greenspace formed by intersecting roads at the east end of the covered bridge. In 1902, a fire destroyed several mills and stores in the village. Pittsford Mills merged with the communities of Pittsford and Hitchcockville to form Pittsford Village in 1913, and the bridge and bandstand were removed in 1931 when Route 7 was upgraded. Nichols Montgomery Powers, Vermont's most famous covered bridge builder, was born in Pittsford in 1817. At age 19, he designed and built his first covered bridge at this location in 1836, crossing Furnace Brook, and because he was a minor, his father signed the contract to guarantee his son's work. The design used a Town lattice truss, a structural system of a rectangular timber frame connected by sawn planks in lattice form fastened by wooden pegs. The two-lane covered bridge with a pedestrian walkway stood until 1931, when it was replaced with a concrete bridge. Powers later became one of the most prolific bridge builders in New England and the Mid Atlantic, and he died in 1897.