The Sunday River Bridge, also called the Artist’s Bridge, was built in 1872 using the Paddleford truss design. Jet Lowe/Library of Congress

NEWRY — The first bridge on this Newry site was built in 1811. It was repaired or replaced several times before being rebuilt in 1869 by Nahum Mason, of Bethel. But Mason’s bridge was destroyed, too, in a windstorm in 1870.

Hiram York is credited with building the current 1872 bridge that still stands today.

According to the National Registry report, in 1872, the town voted to, “build a bridge by day’s work, paying three dollars a day and board, with Hiram York as boss … the two haves [of the bridge] were put together separately on the grass … this bridge was in constant use until 1955.”

Paddleford’s Truss

The design by Peter Paddleford (1785-1859) of Littleton, NH. became the dominant style in covered bridge construction in the mid-1800’s and continued to be until well after his death in 1900. The design was not patented and simply was known as Paddleford’s Truss.

Newry’s Sunday River Bridge, listed on The National Register of Historic Places in 1970, is one of 22 surviving examples in the U.S. of the Paddleford truss design.

The other bridges with this design are all located in northern New England.

The oft-painted and photographed bridge also called the Artist’s Bridge spans Sunday River on Sunday River Road.

York’s Sunday River bridge was repaired in 1923-24 and again in 1950, but according to the Library of Congress report, “The truss is largely original but a few members have been replaced, including a section of lower chord in 1970.”

Paddleford’s design was a multiple kingpost frame with counterbraces or ties. The counterbraces which overlap the panel points and are fastened with tree nails, are intended to act mainly in tension, to relieve some of the stress in the braces, rather in compression, as in the counterbraces of the Long truss. (Paddleford had initially used the Long truss design before modifying it).

In 1970, the state -owned bridge was recognized by NRHP with fourteen other Maine bridges, including Lovejoy Covered Bridge in Andover.

Said, Historian John Briggs who wrote the registry report, “[The Sunday River Bridge] is the ideal little old covered bridge.”

Artist’s Bridge 

The Sunday River Bridge is often referred to as The Artist’s Bridge either because of the many plein air artists that have painted the bridge or more likely because of one artist in particular, John Joseph Enneking, (1841-1916) who was observed working by the bridge on many days, causing the family he was staying with and passersby to begin referring to The Sunday River Bridge as The Artist’s Bridge.

Ironically, after an extensive search, there appears to be no paintings by Enneking of the bridge. However he was clearly fond of Newry as at least three of his paintings listed in art galleries are of North Newry. One is titled “Bear River Trout Pond, North Newry.”

When Enneking was orphaned at the age of 16, he left his family’s Ohio farm to live with an aunt. His first art lessons, taken at Mount St. Mary’s College in Cincinnati, were interrupted when he enlisted in the Union Army to join the Civil War. Severely wounded in action, he was captured and held as a prisoner of war. Enneking eventually made his way to Boston to continue art lessons.

For a time he studied industrial drawing and lithography, but dropped it when his eyes weakened. Tinsmithing proved more profitable, and while he flourished at this occupation he married and built a large home in Hyde Park, MA. He became a partner in a wholesale establishment that soon after failed, and again Enneking returned to art.

He sailed for Europe in 1872 with his family, to study painting. He returned to Boston in 1876 to open a studio. His later style became more impressionistic, losing much of the grandeur of his earlier European teachers. Enneking, was considered one of America’s first impressionist painters.

He painted New England landscapes– the mountains, waterways, pastures, wildflowers and bridges of the region in loose brushstrokes and rich hues.