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Clark's Ford Covered Bridge

COUNTY WORLD GUIDE # CROSSES TRUSS SPANS LENGTH BUILT GONE
Harford MD-12-24x Deer Creek Unk Unk Unk 1833 1885 or earlier
The Maryland Session Laws of 1832, Chapter 136, passed on March 4, 1833 provided for a covered bridge to be built over Deer Creek at Clark's Ford near the current crossing on Grier Nursery Road:
An act for building a bridge over Deer Creek in Harford County.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland , That Henry McAtee, Alexander Rigdon,and Thomas Clark be, and they are hereby appointed Commissioners to fix upon a site at or near Clarksford on Deer Creek, for building a Bridge over said creek, and the said Commissioners are hereby authorized to erect, or cause to be erected, a good and substantial Bridge with two strong abutments and one pier, to be raised sufficiently high to save the bridge in time of freshets, the bridge to be weather boarded and covered with shingles, and done in a workmanlike manner, and for a sum not exceeding six hundred dollars.
The August 1, 1885 flood in Harford County took down many bridges along Deer Creek. The Havre de Grace Republican reported in a news article on August 7, 1885, that the bridge at Clark's was lost in the flood. It is not known if the bridge was the wooden covered bridge or if it was an iron bridge that may have replaced the covered bridge at an earlier date. An article in the Harford Democrat on September 5, 1885, reported on the installation of iron bridges across Deer to replace the washed out bridges during the flood. The article stated that "The new bridges for Clark's and Forwood's, on Deer Creek, are expected at Forest Hill by tomorrow's (Saturday's) freight." So the bridge lost in the flood was replaced with an iron bridge.
UPDATE 04/22/2010: For informaton about flood of 1885.

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