Bridge builders had a bit of trouble getting one constructed across the Maple River. Ed Pierce gave a speech at the Old Settlers’ Picnic in Sheldon in 1906 where he said, in part, a group volunteered to build a bridge on the Tregloan farm in 1881. Their first action was to build cribs of heavy oak and elm logs that reached 20 feet high. They decked them with stringers and floors weighing hundreds of tons. Before night the little stream broke loose, and in ten minutes there wasn’t a log, block, bolt or tool with sight of the bridge, and the builders were looking on with open-mouth wonder at what happened to them.
An article in the 1886 Enterprise stated, “The timbers for the new bridge across the Maple River in Highland Township came last week and were unloaded Saturday and Monday.”
One wonders if Ed Pierce’s memory was exact on this. The two years don’t jive, but then it might’ve been two different affairs separated by five years when a better bridge was being planned.
The name Tregloan Farm has shown up before. Does anyone know anything about it?
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