Long Branch Run or Spesutia Church Covered Bridge

Jack Shagena and Henry Peden discovered this covered bridge while researching information for their book on Harford County's timber bridges. Harford County Commissioners advertised in the Independent Citizen, on February 2, 1832, for proposals for building a covered bridge over Long Branch Run on the road from Spesutia Church to Garrison's (Garrettson's) Meeting house. The bridge was to be a "42 ft. span and 14 ft. wide and enclosed with good pine boards and pine shingles and stone abutments."¹

The ground where the bridge sat eventually became part of the Aberdeen Proving Ground property. The Real Estate Map of Aberdeen Proving Ground, Edgewood Arsenal, and Fort Hoyle prepared in 1923, shows the covered bridge on the property of Mrs. Eleanor Bottomly.²

The first map shown below is Plat 188-0 and if you look closely you can see the original labels for the covered bridge and Long Branch Run. The second map, a current one, from MapSend Streets & Destinations, shows a crossing in the same location, on Old Baltimore Road. It also indicates that Long Branch Run is now an extension of Romney Creek.

¹Jack L. Shagena, Jr., Henry C. Peden, Jr., Timber Bridges - Covered and Uncovered: Harford County's Rural Heritage. (Privately printed by the authors; Bel Air, MD, March, 2010), p. 79; Independent Citizen, February 2, 1832.

¹Jack L. Shagena, Jr., Henry C. Peden, Jr., Timber Bridges - Covered and Uncovered: Harford County's Rural Heritage. (Privately printed by the authors; Bel Air, MD, March, 2010), p. 79;