If you look upriver, a mile or so from the Wiscasset waterfront, two features stand out, one is the high hill known as Clark’s Point, the other is an iron railroad bridge. Both have interesting stories associated with them Clark’s Point was once called Taylor’s Mountain for a previous owner, a sea captain who circumnavigated the world and built a home that still stands near the hill's summit. But for now let’s just concern ourselves with the bridge. You may be surprised to learn it has carried trains across the Sheepscot River since 1907. It was no accident the engineers who designed the bridge chose to build it here at a place known as the “Upper Narrows,” which as its name suggests, is the closest point between the two shores.

The bridge links Clark’s Point on its western shore to a small peninsula in Edgecomb known as Flying Point. For years, I mistakenly thought this wooded peninsula was a part of Newcastle because not far from here is where the old Newcastle train station was once located. It is pretty close to the town line but maps as far back as 1857 show this area within the boundary of the town of Edgecomb. Flying Point, if you’re curious, was so named because as the legend goes this is where the early natives came in the spring and fall to hunt ducks and other migrating birds that could be found here in abundance. 

When it was built over a century ago, the “Iron Bridge” – it’s always been called that – was equipped with a lift span over the river channel to allow boats to travel as far upriver as the Reversing Falls in Sheepscot Village. It was painted black when I first saw it 45 years ago but over the years its iron beams have rusted to a dull, reddish brown. I remember canoeing upriver and taking pictures of both it, and the abandoned bridge tender’s house that stood at the foot of Clark’s Point before the building fell into ruin and was burned down.

This all came back the other day when my old friend Blinn LeBourdais of Wiscasset dropped by my home. Blinn, if you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him, grew up in “Maine’s Prettiest Village” and is always glad to share a story of what life was like here in the “good old days.” An energetic 85 years young, Blinn and his wife Jane have lived on the West Alna Road for many years.

“I’ve got a picture you’ve just got to see,” he said climbing out of his SUV and handing me a mounted photograph of the old Iron Bridge. “I come across this the other day and knew you’d probably like to have it.” It was nice of Blinn to think of me and I, of course, thanked him. The picture did indeed look pretty old; the black and white image having faded to a brownish sepia tone. But there was no date, or signature on it and Blinn had no idea who the photographer was, or when he or she took the picture. What surprised me about it was the huge sign hung on the side of the bridge reading: “THIS SPAN 400 FEET LONG Built and Erected by American Bridge Company. Longest Span in New England.” The sign wasn’t there when I had photographed the bridge in 1979.

“You probably know that Barbara Farrar’s father, Joe Brown, used to be the bridge tender,” Blinn went on to say. “Before they moved to town they lived in the house that was up on the hill there alongside the bridge. I remember when we were kids Barbara and her sister used a handcar to go back and forth to town over the railroad.” 

Mrs. Farrar passed away in 2008 but I recalled back in 1995 she had been interviewed by the Wiscasset Newspaper during my tenure as editor. The article written by reporter Ken Greenleaf was titled “What life was like for the Draw-Tender’s Daughter” and appeared on the newspaper’s front page May 25, 1995. The story, in fact begins by telling us the Brown children rode back and forth to school on a handcar because the only other way for them to get to town was by boat. There was no road then, or now over Clark’s Point to where their home was. Obviously, using the railroad tracks took some careful planning. According to the newspaper story, the Brown family had to have permission to use it from the Station Master, a man remembered by Mrs. Farrar as Frank Gray. 

Two generations of Browns served as bridge tenders. Mrs. Farrar’s grandfather Arthur Albert Brown, a native of Liverpool, England was the first bridge tender hired by the Maine Central Railroad when the iron bridge opened in 1907. The two story, wood-framed house the Brown family called home was built by the railroad and included a small barn and boat house in a cove alongside it. A wooden pier led from the shoreline in front of the house to the bridge. Mrs. Farrar said because there was no electricity, the lift span was hand-operated. She called it a “bascule” drawbridge which was raised and lowered with an enormous counter weight that operated something like a colossal see-saw. The counterweight, closer to the Wiscasset shore, is made of concrete held within a steel frame. The span lifts when a gear is cranked bringing the counterweight down. At the turn of the century there was a lot more river traffic from lumber mills and brick and ice manufacturers who shipped their products down river by scow or barge. Mrs. Farrar said over the years as the river traffic slowed the bridge didn’t have to be opened as often. In the 1950s the family moved to the north end of Wiscasset on what came to be called, the Brown Road. Their new home was close enough so that father Joe could walk to the bridge.

The railroad bridge brings back fond memories to Don Brewer of Wiscasset. I contacted him because I remembered his father, Ron Brewer, had worked for years for the Maine Central RR. “Growing up we used to call it the ‘Trestle Bridge’,” began Don who grew up here and resides at the upper end of Federal Street. “During the summertime after school let out, I’d sometimes ride along with dad in a little rail car up to the bridge. While he was working I’d spend the day fishing from the bridge catching mackerel and sculpin. That was back in the early 1960s; I graduated from Wiscasset High School in 1973.” Don said his father could often be found working alongside Bill Barnes another Wiscasseter in the old railroad shed located a short distance from the Wiscasset train station. Bill served a term or two on the selectboard here. Both the wooden railroad shed and train station are long gone having been sold in the 1980s and put to other uses.

“Dad painted a lot of the railroad bridges when he was younger,” continued Don. “One story told to me was he’d sometimes have to climb down underneath a bridge span, hang off a girder with one arm, and paint with the other. I don’t know if that’s true but as a younger man he was a pretty rugged guy.”

I thought Bill Sutter might know a thing or two about the railroad bridge as well. Bill, 83, invited to me to spend the afternoon with he and his wife Judith in their cozy home across from the Old Jail and Museum. After retiring from the Maine Department of Transportation, Bill served for years as Wiscasset Harbor Master. “The picture (with the sign on it) isn’t as old as it looks because you can see there’s just pilings left of the wooden pier that lead from the bridge tender’s house to the draw span,” began Bill. 

“Something I can tell you,” he continued, “is a little ways upriver from the Iron Bridge is the original place where the Knox Lincoln Railroad originally crossed the river. At low tide you can still see what’s left of the old stone and log piers that carried the tracks over the river and came ashore in Newcastle. One of those old piers is pretty close to the center span of the Iron Bridge and over the years has been struck by boaters that don’t know it’s submerged there at high water.”

Bill said the lift span hasn’t been used in years. “The only time it was opened when I was harbor master was when a sailboat with a tall mast wanted to go upriver. To do that you needed to contact the state 24 hours in advance and make arrangements with the railroad for them to have the bridge opened.” Sometime in the 1980s the lift span was decommissioned and its miter rails removed he added. The miter rails are what connect a movable section of railroad track to a stationary one.

Before I forget, Bill went to school here in Wiscasset with both Blinn and Jane LeBourdais. Jane’s maiden name was Merry; her father operated the Amoco filling station that was located where the Wiscasset town office is. Bill, Blinn and Jane attended grammar school together at the Red Brick Schoolhouse, now the Maine Art Gallery on Warren Street, and graduated from Wiscasset High School when it was a two-story wooden building located on Federal Street.

The railroad’s Rockland Branch, as it’s called, stretches a distance of 48 miles from Woolwich to the City of Rockland. The Knox Lincoln RR opened in the spring of 1871 merging with the Maine Central RR around the turn of the century. It offering both passenger and freight service and once accomodated President Ulysses S. Grant during a summer visit to Maine.

In recent years the operation of railroad has changed hands a number times. As for the Iron Bridge, its length, including the wooden trestle, stretches 995 feet from shore to shore. Its design is a combination of the “humped Pennsylvania truss” and “Warren span.” It’s supported by four stone piers. I contacted American Bridge Company for additional details but as yet have not heard back from them. 

Phil Di Vece earned a B.A. in journalism studies from Colorado State University, Fort Collins and an M.A. in journalism at the University of South Florida Tampa-St. Petersburg. He is the author of three Wiscasset books and is a frequent news contributor to the Boothbay Register-Wiscasset Newspaper. He resides in Wiscasset. Contact him at pdivece@roadrunner.com