The Longwood Covered Bridge

Emmett Loren Kennedy, born July 5, 1848, worked for his father, Archibald M. Kennedy, on the first bridge built by the Kennedy family in 1870 at Dunlapsville in Union County, Indiana, and after its completion became his father's partner and business manager in the family's three-generation bridge-building business. The first bridge was signed A. M. Kennedy, then after Emmett officially joined the business the signing changed to A. M. Kennedy and Son, and by 1871, after Archibald's second son, Charles Freeman Kennedy, born September 25, 1853, had apparently joined, the bridges were signed A. M. Kennedy and Sons. Around 1883 Archibald withdrew, Emmett and Charles became partners under the name Kennedy Brothers, and Charles was severely injured in a fall during construction of the Circleville Bridge in Rushville in 1883 before officially withdrawing in 1886. The business name then became E. L. Kennedy and remained so until Emmett's sons joined the firm in 1913, when it became E. L. Kennedy and Sons; those sons were Charles Ross Kennedy, born March 29, 1892, Karl Archibald Kennedy, born December 15, 1893, and John William Kennedy, born March 20, 1896. The family's last bridge was the Mitchell Bridge in Wayne County, Indiana, in 1918. The Longwood Covered Bridge was built by the Kennedy Brothers in 1884 over Williams Creek near Glenwood, Indiana, and took its name from nearby Longwood Station on the B and O Railroad. In 1984, on its 100th anniversary, it was moved to Roberts Park. The Kennedy family favored the Burr arch truss system for stability and for supporting long wood spans with little or no midstream support, while shorter spans used the Howe or Multiple Kingpost truss system. They favored white pine for its availability, strength, and lightness, and Emmett Kennedy traveled by rail to northern Michigan to contract for white pine logs and oversee their shipment back to the bridge yard in Rushville, where the timbers were made into beams and bored for the bolts that held the structure together. No nails were used in the structure itself, though nails were used later for flooring, roofing, and siding. Bridges built from 1870 to 1892 featured decorative molding at the entrance portals that alluded to Roman columns, hand-carved scrollwork on the side trim of each portal, hand-carved ornate corbels or brackets beneath the roof overhang gable at each entrance, horizontal hung siding, shingled roofs, and white-painted siding made by mixing linseed oil and white lead at the bridge site. Bridges built after 1892 lacked the first three features because those decorative elements reflected the Victorian period and had gone out of use.

Connersville, Indiana · United States