Theodore Burr

Burr truss

Theodore Burr (born August 16, 1771 in Torrington , Colony of Connecticut , † November 22, 1822 in Middletown (Pennsylvania) ) was an American inventor and civil engineer. He is a pioneer of bridge building in the USA and inventor of the Burr Truss , for which he received a patent in 1804 and 1817. It implemented an arch in the framework. His bridges were mostly covered bridges made of wood.

Burr was the cousin of Vice President Aaron Burr . In 1792 he came to Oxford (New York) , where in 1794 he built a flour mill with an associated dam. In 1800 he built a bridge over the Chenango River in Oxford and from 1810 to 1812 his two-story house, which is now a listed building and houses the local library.

Former home of Burr in Oxford, now the library

In 1804 he built a bridge over the Hudson near Waterford (New York) (destroyed by fire in 1909). From 1811 to 1818 he was responsible for the construction of five bridges over the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The last was the bridge at Port Deposit, Maryland, opened in 1818, which lasted until 1857 when it was destroyed by a flood. It had a length of 1200 m and consisted of 18 individual girders in the form of Burr trusses, each with a span of around 60 m (200 feet). His bridge system was successful, but he took over financially and professionally and died relatively penniless.

Ruins of the Port Deposit Bridge over the Susquehanna

literature

• Richard Sanders Allen: Covered Bridges of the Northeast. Brattleboro, Vermont: Stephen Greene, ca.1957.
• Hubertis M. Cummings: Theodore Burr and his Bridges Across the Susquehanna, Pennsylvania History, Vol. 23, No. 4, October 1956

Web links

• Maryland Covered Bridges
• Theodore Burr House , Oxford