Perrine’s Covered Bridge: Fiction & Fact

The New Paltz Historical Society is proud to host Ronald G. Knapp, for an illustrated lecture titled, "Perrine’s Covered Bridge: Fiction & Fact."

Many people are fascinated by covered bridges, and our area had a history of many covered bridges, with the still standing Perrine's Covered Bridge crossing the Wallkill River a few miles north of New Paltz.

There is much inaccurate information in published and unpublished sources about Perrine's Bridge, the site of which was in the Town of New Paltz until a northeastern section of New Paltz was calved off to enlarge the Town of Esopus in 1843. Ron has scoured the primary sources concerning crossings at the site of Perrine's Bridge, and uncovered much new information.

The construction of three covered bridges in the same 1840s decade—Perrine’s, Phillies, and one in the village of New Paltz—across the Wallkill River within fifteen miles of each other, helped connect the area to communities beyond when a network of new roads was also being laid out. Only Perrine's Covered Bridge remains, which many see as New York's most outstanding extant historical bridge.

While we have the physical Perrine's Covered Bridge to connect us to the past, unfortunately facts concerning bridges at that general site and even the date of its construction are not clearly known. Indeed, printed sources frequently give conflicting and inaccurate information about this bridge.

Based on a review of actual documents from the first half of the nineteenth century, this talk will provide some clues, clarifications, and corrections concerning Perrine's Covered Bridge, and others in the Wallkill watershed, even as there are some mysteries that remain.