By Marilyn May
Milford History
Cattle graze along the Wepawaug River just below the Jefferson Bridge. There was a wooden bridge here in 1802 and a second wooden bridge in 1837. At the left is the Davidson Mill just below the falls and at the right is a blacksmith shop run by Chas. J. Morgan. Photo courtesy of the Daniel E. Moger Photo Collection.
In the early 1900s, the citizen-run Village Improvement Association saw to it that all the rundown mills and factories on both sides of the North Street Pond and the Duck Pond were demolished. The result was public, park-like areas. Years later, however, a lot more about the project, especially along the North Street Pond, was revealed. It seems “public” did not include everyone.
In 1986, the Park River Historic District (which extends from the back of City Hall north to the Boston Post Road) submitted a report on that area while seeking recognition on the National Register of Historic Places.
The original nomination document states: “Substandard houses on the island in the river, where many of Milford’s 16 Black families lived in the nineteenth century, were also torn down” during the VIA project.
The “land on a river” was called common land where some people lived and worked. Sometime after the French and Indian War (1754-1763), Henry Gabrielle, a Frenchman from Canada, settled in Milford. His son lived on an island in the Wepawaug River near the waterfall just before King’s Bridge (now the Maple Street Bridge). He had a sabba-day house, also called a noon-day house. Another resident, a blacksmith. named Ezekiel Bradley, put up a one-and-a-half-story building about 1800. He had a shop on the east side of the island. As late as 1900, the land was referred to as Bradley’s Island, even though the first residents were Black families. The VIA had everything demolished, and the island later became part of the east bank of the river.
After passing under the Maple Street Bridge, the river glides by older houses, the First Baptist Church on the east side and the First Church of Christ, Congregational on the west. Along that stretch, the view is limited often by a canopy of leafy trees just before the river flows under the 1640 Meeting House Bridge.
Then the river widens into a lagoon to reveal the most iconic view in Milford. Night and day the back of City Hall is reflected in the dammed-up water of the Wepawaug. The mallard ducks and geese float along like ballet dancers, and in the early days one could hear the sounds of progress coming from the mills and factories, all competing for riverfront space. In fact, the earliest settlers called it the Mill River.
In winters, the Duck Pond froze, and ice skating enthusiasts spent hours there gliding, falling, spinning, laughing and not minding at all what the thermometer read. Some nights in the 1950s, the Milford Fire Department sprayed water over the ice to make it smooth for the next day. A floodlight was also installed one winter. It was during those days that the cable across the river was installed to stop any wobbly skater from going over the falls.
Next comes what was once called the Mill Dam. Just beyond the falls, the swift waters have shaped two small islands, one reachable by a short footbridge that connects to a tranquil, mid-town oasis where the sound of falling water was the only sound heard. Sometimes on a sweltering day, the wind would lift a spray of cool and refreshing water from the falls.
There have been at least two rustic footbridges there to one of the islands, and probably more that have been washed away by floods. Today’s footbridge and background is a popular place for wedding photos.
An article in the November 1899 Connecticut Magazine adds another bit of information on what happened near the falls. “On the west side of Jefferson Bridge…the Baptists used to hold their immersions.” The Baptists had a church about where the City Hall is today. (That congregation was not part of today’s First Baptist Church.)
Next is the Jefferson Bridge that changed over time as transportation changed. Bridges were built at that location in 1802, 1837, 1878, 1898 and 1935. The first was a wooden span built in 1802 during the administration of President Thomas Jefferson, and that name has been used for all five.
A second wooden bridge was built there in 1837, but wooden bridges did not last that long. Something else was needed.
In 1878, the King Iron Bridge Co. built the third bridge made of stone that had a brick roadway.
Time moved on, and the weight and speed of transports increased. The trolleys were coming.
In 1898, the Milford Street Railway Company wanted to lay tracks through Milford. The bridge just built 20 years earlier had to go. A wider, stronger iron bridge to accommodate trolleys was built by the Frank R. Long Co.
Eventually, trolleys were phased out. Then the heavy, faster buses were coming. The State Highway Commission proposed another new Jefferson Bridge. At a 1933 special town meeting it was agreed to have a new bridge if the citizens were allowed to have a say in its design. They asked that it be of stone construction and harmonious to its New England setting. They also had in mind that it would be a fitting memorial for the 300th anniversary of Milford, even though it would be finished years before the 1939 tercentenary. A short two years after its proposal, and after dozens of meetings to pick the design, construction began in May of 1935 and was completed that August. Sometime later, plant boxes of the same stone as the bridge were added.
A 1937 paper called “Rivers and Bridges of Milford” by a Mrs. Frederick Smith notes that the river past the Jefferson Bridge and below the Prospect Street area was dredged. More than “3,000 cubic feet of silt and material have been taken out and deposited on the Broad Street Green.” Although there is no more information on that, it makes sense, because the western most end of the Green (and extending all the way to the harbor) was another town swamp area that needed fill.
Finally, on Aug. 25, 1939, during the tercentenary ceremonies the bridge and an added memorial monument were dedicated.
On the northeast end of the span, a granite pedestal designed by Walter J. Skinner, Jr. was dedicated to Connecticut’s three governors who were from Milford: Robert Treat, Jonathan Law and Charles Hobby Pond.
However, there was a notice about the dedication in the August 1939 Milford Citizen tercentenary edition. It reads: “the ceremonies will be at the northeast end of what will be called Governors Bridge.” Another article called it the Town Hall Bridge. It sounds like not everyone got the memo on the bridge’s name.
Perhaps in this Land of Steady Habits, people thought: why change the name after 137 years? For some, continuing to use Jefferson’s name made sense, because the current Town/City Hall was patterned after Jefferson’s Monticello home.
This fifth Jefferson Bridge has four-foot sidewalks. The views from both sides of the bridge make this a place to see a never-ending current that slowly pulls the Wepawaug to the end of its journey.
The river, however, still has more work to do.
Marilyn May is a lifelong resident of Milford and a member of the Board of the Milford Historical Society.