For nearly one hundred fifty years, the Hamden Covered Bridge has stood as a testament to the ingenuity and resilience of Delaware County structures and the engineers who built them. Its story began with Robert Murray, a Scotsman born in Eskdalmuir in 1814 who settled in Bovina, New York, in 1818, and who began construction of the bridge in 1859 under a contract signed with the Town of Hamden on April 17, 1859, at a cost of $1,000. Murray often walked from Andes to the site in Hamden, boarding there during the week and returning home on Saturday. The bridge was built in the Long Truss design patented by Colonel Stephen H. Long of Hopkinton, New Hampshire, and was originally a single-span structure about 128 feet long. Its barn-like enclosed form was especially valued by horse travelers, since many horses feared crossing water on open bridges. After nearly a century without major structural changes, the bridge was overhauled in the 1940s with the installation of a center pier for greater roof support, turning it into a double-span bridge. In 1966, Delaware County repaired a lean to one side by adding two large supporting buttresses, and that same year the bridge received its red paint. By 2000, despite restoration efforts from the 1940s through the 1980s, structural wear had become severe. W.L. Kline won the contract to lead a restoration that began on July 19, 2000, when the entire bridge was lifted from its abutments. Although a top chord snapped and one-third of the structure sank into the river, the damage was limited and work soon returned to schedule. The original tin roof was replaced with a stronger steel roof, decayed bottom chords were replaced, the center pier added in the 1940s was removed, and other 20th-century additions were taken away. The Hamden Covered Bridge was restored to its original form and completed on November 13, 2000.