James Finley

"View of the Chain Bridge, built by James Finley Esq. " (1810), wood engraving , William Strickland , The Port Folio [ Magazine ], June 1810. Although not clearly identifiable, probably the Chain Bridge at Falls of Schuylkill .

James Finley (* 1756 in Ireland ; † 1828 ), also Judge James Finley , was a bridge builder and politician. He is considered to be the first to plan and build modern suspension bridges .

Life

Born in Ireland, Finley moved to a 1.16 km² farm in Fayette County, Pennsylvania near Uniontown . Elected Justice of the Peace in 1784, he became district commissioner and member of the House and Senate of Pennsylvania in 1789. He was an associate judge in Fayette County from 1791 until his death.

bridges

His Jacob's Creek Bridge , built in 1801 for US $ 600 and destroyed in 1833, was the first example of a suspension bridge with wrought iron chains and a deck. It connected Uniontown with Greensburg , had a span of 21 meters and was 3.8 meters wide.

Finley also designed and built a chain suspension bridge over Dunlap's Creek in Brownsville, Pennsylvania in 1809. In 1820, however, the bridge collapsed under a heavy snow load when a team with six horses was crossing . In 1835 the bridge was replaced by Dunlap's Creek Bridge , the nation's first cast iron bridge .

Other bridges built according to his patent are:

on the Potomac River , 1807, 39 meter span
Chain Bridge at Falls of Schuylkill , Philadelphia , 1808; 2 yokes, east span 60.96 meters, west span about 30.48 meters; collapsed in January 1816 under a heavy snow load
in Newburyport, Massachusetts, across the Merrimack River , 1810, 74 meter span, collapsed in 1827
across the Lehigh River , in Northampton, Pennsylvania ; remained in service until 1933

Although more than forty bridges are attributed to him, only twenty have been identified. None of them still exist today.

Finley patented his system in 1808 and published a paper on the principle of the suspension bridge with a reinforced roadway.

swell

↑ Judge James Finley's Gravestone, Laurel Hill, United Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Fayette County, PA
↑ ^a ^b Kranakis, Eda, "Constructing a Bridge" , The MIT Press, 1997
^ ^A ^b ^c Finley, James, "A Description of the Patent Chain Bridge," The Port Folio Volume III, Bradford & Inskeep, Philadelphia, June 1810, online in Google Book Search
^ Structural Iron 1750-1850 , edited by RJM Sutherland, Ashgate, 1998. pp. 18-19.

Web links

James Finley. In: Structurae

Image of Finley's Jacob's Creek Bridge , accessed Nov. 29, 2012

personal data
SURNAME	Finley, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Finley, Judge James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American inventor and designer of chain suspension bridges
DATE OF BIRTH	1756
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ireland
DATE OF DEATH	1828
Place of death	Uniontown, Pennsylvania, USA

[gravestone-1] Judge James Finley's Gravestone, Laurel Hill, United Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Fayette County, PA

[Kranakis-2] Kranakis, Eda, "Constructing a Bridge" , The MIT Press, 1997

[Finley-3] A ^b ^c Finley, James, "A Description of the Patent Chain Bridge," The Port Folio Volume III, Bradford & Inskeep, Philadelphia, June 1810, online in Google Book Search

[4] Structural Iron 1750-1850 , edited by RJM Sutherland, Ashgate, 1998. pp. 18-19.