Gold Brook Covered Bridge, built in 1844 by John W. Smith and listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1974, is an excellent example of a Howe truss bridge, a design patented by William Howe of Massachusetts in 1840. Hundreds of iron and wood Howe truss bridges were built across the US for roads and train tracks because they were strong, reliable, and easy to build. This bridge and two others in Lunenburg and Lemington are the last remaining Howe truss covered bridges in Vermont. Howe's design used pairs of vertical threaded iron tension rods between diagonal brace beams, secured to the upper and lower beams with bolts, to solve the tendency of all-wood bridge joints to loosen, pull apart, sag, and eventually fail from loading, vibration, and wood shrinkage; if joints loosened, the bolts could be tightened to stiffen the bridge. He was the first to use this innovation, and the rods, bolts, and angle blocks were mass produced in a factory and shipped to the site while the wooden parts were available locally. Covered bridges were built to protect wooden structural members from rotting so they would last a long time, and many of the beams in Gold Brook Covered Bridge are still original. It is remarkable that such a technologically advanced bridge was built in a remote location like Stowe Hollow to cross the then-named Hull Brook only four years after the design was patented, likely because of a sawmill just downstream. Daniel Dutton purchased land identified as Proprietor Lot 77 Division 2 circa 1817, and shortly afterward a sawmill was established on the south side of the brook just downstream of the present-day bridge, where an uncovered bridge then stood on the same site. A dam of stacked logs about 15 feet high was built between two bedrock outcroppings adjacent to the mill building, creating a mill pond that extended a few hundred feet upstream and produced about 50 horse-power, which was considerable at the time. The mill's up-and-down saws were crude and loud, and the mill likely supplied lumber for the bridge and many buildings in Stowe until the great flood of 1927 destroyed the dam. In 1849, a young man from Stowe named Abial Slayton went to California during the gold rush, returned after striking it rich, recognized the presence of gold in Hull Brook, and set up a sluicing operation that brought in about $200 in gold. The gold soon ran dry, but the brook's new name remained, and people have continued traveling to Gold Brook to try panning for gold. The bridge is also linked to the Legend of Emily. In the best-known version, remembered by some from the 1940's, Emily was a young farmer's daughter, perhaps as early as 1849, who was deserted by the man she loved on the day they intended to marry and took her own life at the bridge; some believe her spirit haunts Emily's Bridge on moonlit nights. Another recollection holds that in the 1970's, during a wave of interest in witchcraft in schools, a story was invented before impressionable college students about Emily being jilted, riding back across the bridge in fury, and being thrown from a wagon to her death when the horses panicked. Whatever its origin, the legend has continued to fascinate many.
