The Sonestown Covered Bridge is a covered bridge over Muncy Creek in Davidson Township, Sullivan County, Pennsylvania built around 1850. It is long and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1980. It is named for the nearby unincorporated village of Sonestown in Davidson Township, and is also known as the Davidson Covered Bridge. It was built to provide access to a grist mill which operated until the early 20th century.
Pennsylvania had the first covered bridge in the United States and has the most of any state in the 21st century. In most places, they were a transition between stone and metal bridges, with the roof and sides protecting the wooden structure from weather. The Sonestown bridge is a Burr arch truss type with a load-bearing arch sandwiching multiple vertical king posts for strength and rigidity. The bridge construction is cruder than the other two surviving covered bridges in Sullivan County, with each Burr arch formed from six straight beams set at angles instead of a smooth curve.
The bridge was repaired in 1969 and after flood damage in 1996, 2005, 2013, and 2020. It was also restored in 2001. Despite the repairs and restoration, however, the bridge structure's sufficiency rating on the National Bridge Inventory was only 21.3 percent in 2016, and its condition was deemed "basically intolerable requiring high priority of corrective action". It is the shortest covered bridge in the county, but as of 2020 is open only to pedestrian traffic.
Overview
The covered bridge crosses Muncy Creek in Davidson Township on Champion Hill Road (Township Road 310), just east of U.S. Route 220. The village of Sonestown is north of the bridge on Route 220, giving the Sonestown Covered Bridge its name. The bridge is also east of the village of Muncy Valley along Route 220. Its official name on the NRHP is Sonestown Covered Bridge. It is also known as the Davidson Covered Bridge, for its township. Sullivan County is located in north-central Pennsylvania, about northwest of Philadelphia and east-northeast of Pittsburgh.
The area that became Davidson Township was first settled in 1806, and was incorporated as a township in 1833. Within the township, George Sones built a sawmill and founded the unincorporated village of Sonestown in 1843. All of these events occurred before Sullivan County was formed from part of Lycoming County on March 14, 1847. The bridge was built in 1850, and in the late 19th century Sonestown "boomed like crazy" as the lumber industry grew in Sullivan County. The village was then home to a plant that manufactured the staves for making barrels. It had a clothespin factory from 1903 to 1929 but lost almost all industry by the 1930s. As of 1996, Sonestown had a population of about 200, most of whom commuted to work in Muncy, Montoursville, and Williamsport. In 1996 the village had a few stores and an inn with a restaurant, attracting tourists and hunters.
History
Background
The first covered bridge in the United States was built in 1800 over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. According to Susan M. Zacher, author of The Covered Bridges of Pennsylvania: A Guide, the first covered bridges of the Burr arch truss design were also built in the state. Pennsylvania is estimated to have once had at least 1,500 covered bridges and is believed to have had the most in the country between 1830 and 1875. In 2001, Pennsylvania had more surviving historic covered bridges than any other state, with 221 remaining in 40 of its 67 counties.
Covered bridges were a transition between stone and metal bridges, the latter made of cast iron or steel. In 19th-century Pennsylvania, lumber was an abundant resource for bridge construction, but wood did not last long when exposed to the elements. The roof and enclosed sides of covered bridges protected the structural elements, allowing some of these bridges to survive for well over a century. A Burr arch truss consists of a load-bearing arch sandwiching multiple king posts, resulting in a stronger and more rigid structure than one made of either element alone. Although there were 30 covered bridges in Sullivan County in 1890, only five were left by 1954, and as of 2020 only three remain: Forksville, Hillsgrove, and Sonestown.