The weather was worse in the 1930s

CORNWALL — Somewhere out there are photos and detailed information about the covered bridge. No, not the tourist magnet in West Cornwall, but one a few miles south on the Housatonic. It was not far from the “concrete bridge” that carries vehicles on routes 7 and 4 over the river from Cornwall Bridge to Sharon, and was at the original junction of those state highways.Dealing with the flooding of the last couple of weeks has been a nightmare for many. But 65 years ago, the ice out and the spring thaw were devastating for the entire community. Longtime residents still recall frightening weather disasters over the years that make this winter’s problems pale in comparison.On March 11, 1936, on the tail of a bad winter and with heavy rain for nine days (sounds familiar) big ice moving in the thaw ripped the covered bridge from its abutments and smashed it to pieces. The wave of debris hit Swift’s Bridge a mile or so downstream and destroyed that. Neither bridge was rebuilt; the concrete bridge, completed in 1930, made them pretty much unnecessary.That there was another covered bridge, presumably the namesake of the village of Cornwall Bridge, is well-known. But its full story remains elusive, with clues found only in official historical material and news articles — and the memories of longtime residents. Not long ago, Gordon Cavanaugh, born and raised in Cornwall Bridge, suggested The Lakeville Journal look into a major flood around that time. Not long after, Norma Galaise, who assembles the newspaper feature Turning Back the Pages came across a small article from the March 19, 1936, issue of The Journal. She had, as it turned out, a good hunch that it was worth a story.That 1936 story was published the week after the covered bridge had washed away, and it reported a landslide that closed Route 7 for two days. “Early Sunday morning, 60 to 70 feet of the Cornwall Bridge-Torrington highway was covered with tons of rock, dirt, trees and brush as a result of a landslide,” the article said.It described a detour around the blocked road. One can only imagine how that went, especially with the two nearest bridges wiped out.“Between 3,000 and 4,000 cubic feet of earth and rock was said to have fallen in the first slide. A gang of men under the supervision of William Preston of West Cornwall, aided in its removal. W. M. Hardenburg of Canaan was in charge of the 20 state workers, who were used to clear the highway with the assistance of two steamshovels.”But that was not the catastrophe Cavanaugh remembered. He was only a baby then. He and his brother, Harold, who thinks it happened in 1944, recall a flash flood that came down a cut in the mountains to the west and inundated the lower section of Cornwall Bridge. (This was the summer the boys spent haying on a neighbor’s farm.)“The sky suddenly became very dark. It poured for four or five hours. I think it was two storms that hit together,” Cavanaugh said. “The water came down through a cut in the mountains to the west. A woman who lived up toward Route 45 tried to step out on her front porch, but it was gone. She was washed downstream. They found her body in Kent a day or two after.”Another piece of information begs clarification. The news article states the covered bridge had been in service for more than 100 years. That would put its opening date at prior to 1836. The Cornwall Chronology, published by the Cornwall Historical Society, has only one entry for that bridge. It states that on May 1841 bids were requested for its construction.