Garner Rix Built Bridges
This lens is about bridges, bridge construction and transportation in the late 18th century in areas traveled by Garner Rix. It accompanies the Unit Study, Garner Rix and the Royalton Raid helping to round out the knowledge of Garner Rix's life and times.
Garner Rix not only built bridges across streams and rivers he also built bridges across cultures and generations giving us a thirst for knowledge of other cultures as well as for an understanding of the life and times he lived in.
Bridge Construction will help children not only learn history but also the physics of how and why bridges can carry weight. Let's build some bridges...
Table of Contents
- Transportation in 18th Century Vermont
- Transportation in 1780
- The need to Build Bridges
- Bridges in Colonial Connecticut
- Garner Rix's Bridge and Mill
- Pictures of Garner Rix's Bridge and Mill
- Learning to Build Bridges
- Building Bridges
- Bridges to the Past
- Bridge Building Competition (AP Physics LMG High School)
- 18th Century Bridges and Bridge Building
- Building Bridges with K'nex
- K'nex Pieces for your Bridge
- Building Bridges with Toothpicks
- Evelyn's Hands-on Learning Blog
- Come Visit Garner Rix's Bridge
- Look Who's Twittering about Bridge Building:
- Learn more about the 18th Century
- Bragging about Bridge Building
- About the Author of this Bridge Building Lens
Transportation in 18th Century Vermont
Roads and Bridges before and after the 1780 Royalton Raid
Remember that the trees were old growth and thus were bigger with more space between them and that the best routes are now used as roads.
As you walk, think about the Rix family. What do you think they were talking about? What did they anticipate their live would be like when they arrived in Royalton? What were they missing from Connecticut? What wild animals did they see along the way. Were they worried about raids?
Write a journal from the perspective of one of Garner Rix's family members.
Transportation in 18th Century Vermont
Photo Credit: Bridge
in the Public Domain.
- Transportation History in Vermont
- At the time of the American Revolution, Vermont was not easily accessible. A few military roads and major waterways, such as the Connecticut River, Winooski River, and Lake Champlain, provided the best routes through the territory.
In the early 18th century, small earthen roadways carried travelers by foot or horseback. Ox teams were used for hauling heavy or large loads overland, such as the Vermont granite used in the construction of the State Capitol.
By the end of the 18th century, private individuals constructed several turnpikes, which greatly improved land transportation in the State, and enabled the establishment of stagecoach lines.
Many sites were constructed during this period of slow growth when small communities were established close to waterways, with access to both water and land transportation routes.
This settlement pattern was seen throughout the county during the 18th and early 19th centuries. - Orleans County, Vermont - Wikipedia
- In 1779 or 1780, General Moses Hazen constructed the Bayley-Hazen Military Road from Newbury, Vermont through Hardwick, Greensboro, Craftsbury, and Albany to Hazen's Notch in northern Vermont. This purpose of this road was to invade Canada. It was never used for that purpose, but was instrumental in the settlement of this area.[21] However, it was five or more years before the wilderness was inhabited by other than a few Abenaki Indians, and that during the summer.
Vermont was divided into two counties in March, 1778. In 1781 the legislature divided the northernmost county, Cumberland, into three counties: Windham and Windsor, located about where they are now.
Transportation in 1780
How did Garner Rix's family get around?
In most parts of the states, roads were nearly nonexistent at first, and it wasn't until the 1880s that there was sufficient civilization to raise the speed of travel beyond the average walking speed.Big Annie is a story of Flatboat on the Mississippi which took place soon after 1780.
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Big Annie: Mississippi Flatboat Captain
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Activities related to the story of Big Annie, a flatboat captain who, despite all odds, brings Christmas toys from New Orleans up the river to the children of Natchez. Learn about the cultures, historical times and wildlife along the Mississippi Riv...
The need to Build Bridges
Travel in 1780: Connecticut, Vermont and Quebec
Garner Rix and his family moved from Connecticut to Vermont in 1780 by oxcart. During his captivity he walked to Montreal and back.-
Garner Rix and the Royalton Raid - 1780
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Garner Rix was just 12 when he moved with his father, pregnant mother, two sisters and three brothers from a farm in Connecticut to a log cabin on the banks of the White River, a place that would one day be called Royalton, Vermont. He helped h...
Bridges in Colonial Connecticut
Rebuilding after the Royalton Raid
- Building the Bridges of Connecticut
In the Colonial period, bridges were the responsibility of Connecticut's individual towns. Each year people at the town meeting elected several highway surveyors, who then took charge of the roads and bridges in particular sections of town. Money for construction and repairs came from the town's annual highway tax, levied on households according to how much land they owned. Residents who were short of cash could pay all or part of their highway tax by working on the roads, by providing the town with a team of oxen, or by furnishing timber for bridges.
Most of these early bridges were short spans built of wood. Except for stone slabs used to cross run-off ditches and other small streams, masonry bridges were too expensive. The timber bridges of the Colonial period, even when braced by simple truss forms such as the king-post truss, were limited to a length of about fifty feet. Wider streams had to be bridged by a series of spans resting on intermediate stone piers, and ferries provided the principal means of crossing the state's largest rivers, including the Connecticut, Housatonic, Naugatuck, and Thames.
Few towns planned ahead or took a broad view of their transportation requirements. Instead, bridge construction and maintenance responded to petitions from townspeople, and it was carried out at the lowest possible cost. Such localized, informal planning was appropriate for a society made up largely of farmers. Most people had to travel only to a few neighboring farms, to the gristmill, to the meetinghouse, and occasionally to a store. The system worked less well when many bridges had to be replaced or repaired at once, such as in 1795, when a spring flood washed out dozens of bridges in the Farmington Valley. The towns responded by doubling the highway tax, creating a hardship for many families.
-from the Connecticut Highway Department
Garner Rix's Bridge and Mill
Bridge Building about 1780
Covered Bridge, Falmouth, Maine
Buy at AllPosters.com
On my farm in Vermont you can still see the abutments to the bridge that Garner Rix built to connect his farm with the neighbor's. He later built a mill further upstream and convinced the town to move the road so that it went past his mill instead of right in front of the house. The remains of his mill are still quite evident especially when the leaves are off the trees.
Pictures of Garner Rix's Bridge and Mill
Royalton Library and Town Clerk's office.
Click on the above image to contact the Town Clerk about obtaining a copy of Nash's History of Royalton
Hope Nash wrote a book about the History of Royalton, Vt. that was published in 1975. She included pictures of Garner Rix's bridge and mill and tells why they were built and eventually abandoned. This is a highly recommended book.
Royalton, Vermont
Amazon Price: (as of 12/10/2009) 
ROYALTON VERMONT
Amazon Price: (as of 12/10/2009)
Learning to Build Bridges
Bridge Building Activities
There are lots more bridge building activities on my Three Billy Goats Gruff lens.-
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
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Reading the classic tale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff is a delightful way to kick off a Unit Study on Goats. We compare fiction and non-fiction goats, make graphs, build bridges and play lots of games. Goat's milk and goat cheese are staples in ma...
Building Bridges
The Royalton Raid helped to build bridges.
Deserted Bridge, South Royalton, Vermont by Eric Sloane
Not only did Garner Rix probably help his father build the first bridges in Royalton, he also seems to have helped to build the bridges across cultures passing down ideas of tolerance and acceptance from his intimate association with the Mohawks and the Canadian French.
1. Read the book A House is a House for Me. How could you rewrite this book to make it about bridges?"
2. Make a Bridge Building Center with materials to build bridges. The two books that follow are great resources for bridge building projects.
Let's Try It Out with Towers and Bridges is a good read aloud that you can use to do a demonstration of how bridges work. After reading this book with the class we did the activities described as an introduction to the Bridge Center.
Put the View Master in or near the Bridge Center.Children love to see the pictures of New England Covered bridges.
Take pictures of finished bridges to make into a class book. Place the book in your classroom library for children to read during Silent Reading.
3. Compare these bridges with the tunnels built for the River Otter and Woodmouse Unit Studies.
New England Covered Bridges & Fall Foliage - ViewMaster 3 Reel set
Amazon Price: $9.88 (as of 12/10/2009)
Bachmann Trains Covered Bridge
Amazon Price: $14.04 (as of 12/10/2009)
Bridges: Amazing Structures to Design, Build & Test (Kaleidoscope Kids)
Amazon Price: $10.36 (as of 12/10/2009)
Let's Try It Out with Towers and Bridges : Hands-On Early-Learning Activities
Amazon Price: (as of 12/10/2009)
A House Is a House for Me
Amazon Price: $7.99 (as of 12/10/2009)
"Garner Rix helped to build bridges across cultures passing down ideas of tolerance and acceptance."
Bridges to the Past
Bridging the gap between the present and the past
Hands-on learning projects such as bridges building projects help children to visualize life from the past. Think of the many ways that you can experience the lives of generations past and relate that to our lives today.
How do you build bridges to the past?
Fetching blurbs now... please stand byReenactments and hands-on learning projects.
Reading and Research Projects
OhMe says:
actually both but most recently I am building bridges to the past with some of my Squidoo lenses.
Posted May 20, 2009
Bridge Building Competition (AP Physics LMG High School)
18th Century Bridges and Bridge Building
Building Bridges with K'nex
Introduction to Simple Machines: Bridges
This Bridges Kit builds 13 different models and allows kids to work solo or as a team.
The models demonstrate arch, beam, bascule, cable-stayed, cantilever, truss and suspension bridges.
Amazon Price: (as of 12/10/2009)
K'Nex Education: Introduction to Simple Machines Teacher's Guide - Bridges
This 92-page teacher's guide comes with 10 inquiry-based lesson plans, key concepts, terms, definitions, objectives and reproducible student worksheets.
Written to meet State and National Education Standards for grades 3-6.
Amazon Price: (as of 12/10/2009)
K'nex Pieces for your Bridge
When building bridges it is usually advantageous to have lots of pieces to work with. I have found that an inexpensive way to buy quantities of building materials is through eBay.
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand by
Building Bridges with Toothpicks
Photo Credit: Toothpick Bridge
on Flickr, Creative Commons.
We tried making these bridges with a group of homeschoolers. We nixed the competition and worked in a cooperative and experimental way.
Children of all ages learned a lot about construction, how glue needs to dry in order for the structure to stay together and shapes that support a structure.
We also tried it with marshmallow but found that the structure tends to sag and the children tend to want to eat all the marshmallows which is not good for their health.
Building Toothpick Bridges (Math Projects: Grades 5-8)
A company (five or six students) must build a bridge that beats the budget and bears a required load. The architect and manager order materials from the warehouse (the teacher), while the accountant writes checks and keeps the books. Grades 5-8
Amazon Price: $15.99 (as of 12/10/2009)
THE CHENILLE KRAFT COMPANY Flat Wood Toothpicks, 2,500 per Pack
Make sure that you get the flat kind so that they glue together well.
Amazon Price: $5.99 (as of 12/10/2009)
Elmer's All Multipurpose White Glue, 4 oz. (E372)
Amazon Price: $1.58 (as of 12/10/2009)
Evelyn's Hands-on Learning Blog
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byCome Visit Garner Rix's Bridge
Come Visit Vermont
Photo Credit: Vermont Dirt Road
on Flickr, Creative Commons.
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Come Visit Vermont
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In a couple of weeks I will be making the long drive from Miami up the east coast of the United States to my home in Vermont. Vermont is the place that my heart longs for. No matter where I travel it always calls to me. If you have not been there ye...
Look Who's Twittering about Bridge Building:
Learn more about the 18th Century
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Garner Rix and the Royalton Raid - 1780
-
Garner Rix was just 12 when he moved with his father, pregnant mother, two sisters and three brothers from a farm in Connecticut to a log cabin on the banks of the White River, a place that would one day be called Royalton, Vermont. He helped h...
-
Big Annie: Mississippi Flatboat Captain
-
Activities related to the story of Big Annie, a flatboat captain who, despite all odds, brings Christmas toys from New Orleans up the river to the children of Natchez. Learn about the cultures, historical times and wildlife along the Mississippi Riv...
Bragging about Bridge Building
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Reply
- ElizabethJeanAllen ElizabethJeanAllen Aug 9, 2009 @ 8:39 pm
- Thanks for stopping by my Finding Time Lens
Lizzy
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Reply
- Joan4 Joan4 Jun 4, 2009 @ 8:14 am
- I agree with Ohme - I wish I could be in your class!
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Reply
- ElizabethJeanAllen ElizabethJeanAllen May 29, 2009 @ 6:44 pm
- When studying force, my students built bridges with spaghetti, linguine, and marshmallows. They learned a lot and we had a lot of fun.
Thanks for sharing
Lizzy
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Reply
- Michey Michey May 26, 2009 @ 9:01 pm
- I like how you mix history facts with fun, 5* from me
Michey
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Reply
- K_Linda K_Linda May 26, 2009 @ 8:11 pm
- Another awesome lens, Evelyn, and a great addition to the Vermont Lovers Group. 5* and lensroll to my Vermont Covered Bridges lens.
- Load More
About the Author of this Bridge Building Lens
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Evelyn Saenz: Lensography of a Teacher
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My passion is teaching and finding ways to teach children in fun, hands-on, creative ways. The unit studies I make on Squidoo reflect my view that learning should be integrated and no skills should be taught in isolation. I believe that each topic s...
by Evelyn_Saenz
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