Bennett's Meadow Bridge

The town of Northfield first authorized a bridge at or near the site of the current bridge in 1810. The bridge was built by a private corporation with the town holding stock. The new bridge was destroyed in a flood after only a few years. A horse boat ferry, known as Bennett's Meadow Ferry, replaced the river crossing.^[1] In 1897, the state legislature authorized Franklin County to construct a second bridge at or near the site of the ferry at a cost not to exceed $35,000. The new bridge was designed by Edward Shaw of Boston and was opened to traffic in 1899.^[2] The bridge was one of the first bridges erected by a then novel method without the use of false works that has since become standard procedure.^[3] The 1899 bridge was later demolished and a third bridge (the current bridge) was constructed just south of the former bridge, resulting also in the slight realignment of the highway.

• List of crossings of the Connecticut River

• Bridge Inventory Record^{[permanent dead link]} on NationalBridges.com.
• Massachusetts Historical Commission, Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth (1982). MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report, Northfield (PDF). Boston: Commonwealth of Massachusetts.^{[permanent dead link]}

• HAER report on Schell Bridge, August 1990, which also talks quite a bit about this bridge