Back to 
| |
Please be patient while pictures load. |
| Return to Main Bridge History Page | |
|
Back to |
| Tradition has it that Native Americans regularly crossed the Hudson River at the point between what is now Beacon and Newburgh, long before Europeans arrived in America. In 1743 an 'official' ferry was established when Alexander Colden received a royal charter from King George II to carry passengers and goods for profit. The American Revolution brought national importance to the ferry. Through most of the war the British controlled the lower Hudson south of Croton, and north of Albany, British forces in Canada often threatened travel. |  |
| The ferry made it possible to keep communications open between patriots in New England and the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. | |
| John Adams, George Washington, Samuel Adams, and numerous others used the ferry to lead armies or complete important tasks . The crossroads nature of the area convinced Washington to set up headquarters here before the battle of Yorktown, and use the site to oversee the British withdrawal after Cornwallis' surrender. |
| The right to operate ferries between Beacon and Newburgh was given to the Ramsdell family by Alexander Colden's heirs. They operated the ferry through the steamboat era until 1956, when the Bridge Authority took over ferry services. |
 |
In February, 1951, Lee B. Mailler of Cornwall was majority leader of the New York State Assembly. He introduced a bill calling for an appropriation of $50,000 to conduct test borings for a bridge between Newburgh and Beacon. The Chambers of Commerce in both Newburgh and Beacon, as well as civic groups including the Automobile Club of Newburgh helped mobilize public support for the bill. Representatives and community leaders |
| from the cities of Newburgh and Beacon traveled to Albany to present petitions seeking quick approval of the proposed Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. It was passed and signed by Governor Thomas E. Dewey. | |
|
By the fall of 1951, test borings and site surveys were completed under the direction of John Burch McMorran, then Chief Engineer for the |
|
|
|
New York State Department of Public Works. In February1952, the cost of the bridge was estimated at approximately $18 million, not including legal expenses and the cost of rights of way. |
||
 |
Assemblyman Mailler introduced additional legislation in February 1953 to authorize actual construction of the bridge. It was approved, but it included no appropriation and the Bridge Authority had no way to build it. Work was also prevented by law until completion of the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge, but this barrier was removed by the Mailler-Hatfield Bill in 1954. The Bridge Authority still lacked bonding power to build the two bridges simultaneously, but a 1955 bond issue covering costs at the Kingston span also included a $1.2 million development fund for the bridge over Newburgh Bay. |
| During the Harriman Administration (1954-1958), the Bureau of Public Roads decided that the bridge would have to be at least 4 lanes wide to carry an Interstate Highway. Federal aid for the toll |  |
 |
| bridge was approved because it would be part of an Interstate. The project was delayed, though, when in 1959 federal funds were redistributed, and less money was available. Finally in 1960, at the recommendation of Governor Rockefeller, the State opted to build a less expensive, two-lane bridge instead of the original 4-lane design, without federal assistance. |
|
Continue |
