Across the Connecticut River, you will enter Bradford and Vermont over the river that brought many of the original settlers to this area. One can imagine the succession of native canoes, flat bottom boats carrying products to and from the area, ferries crossing the river, and log drives from the northern woods. This bridge was built in 1928 by Boston Bridge Works following the Flood of 1927 to replace an 1826 covered bridge. It features a metal Pennsylvania petit truss design typical of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was built for strength to withstand the spring floods of the Connecticut River.

Continue on Vermont Route 25 to the traffic light. Turn right on US Route. 5 towards the center of Bradford. The town is located where the Waits River joins the Connecticut. The Waits River is named for Capt. Joseph Wait(e), a member of the Rogers' Rangers expedition against the natives in Canada in 1759 and one of the first Europeans to visit the region. Bradford was also the home of one of Vermont's former governors, and the town boasts a number of architecturally interesting buildings.

As you enter the village you cross the Waits River Bridge and on the left will find Boch Park and Falls of the Waits. This area was the center of industrial growth from the earliest days of the town.

The water wheel was located in the lower room, a feature that allowed it to operate during freezing weather. If you had looked upriver in the l9th century you would have seen three sets of wooden dams and a number of mills producing everything from plows to paper. The largest mill was Asa Low's paper mill (1840-1901), and Bradford paper was well known in the area. When it burned, portions of the cut stone were used to build the original portion of the hydroelectric dam you see.



Continue into the village center to the junction of Vermont Route 25B and US Route 5. To the left is the tiny Memorial Park.

Along with memorials to Bradford's veterans is the Statue of Captain Charles E. Clark, a Bradford native and national hero of the Spanish-American War. He commanded the battleship Oregon in the l898 Battle of Santiago Bay.

West of the statue on Vermont Route 25B, stands the Bradford Public Library. Built in 1895, the building was designed by architect Lambert Packard who also designed the Fairbanks Museum and the North Congregational Church in St. Johnsbury, VT, some 30 miles north. The Bradford library is a continuation of the first Vermont chartered library (1796). Of special interest in the library is the newly restored dodecahedral (12-sided) reading room.

Continue north on US Route 5. In pre-Interstate-91 days, this was the most significant shopping center for the area. Recently it was listed as one of the ten most significant main streets in the nation by Travel and Leisure Magazine, described as “so ordinary as to be extraordinary.” A small metal ring in the sidewalk near the south end of the block notes the location of the Old Elm Tree from which all lots on the east side of the street were measured.

Just a bit further north was the historic Bliss Hotel (1806). Opposite are three brick buildings built between 1883 and1891.

At the bottom of the unusual green metal tower of the southerly one, the Richardson building, can still be seen the word “bank” which, along with the dollar sign in the granite keystone, denotes its original purpose.







These blocks were built to replace wooden buildings destroyed in a devastating fire in 1883.

Continue north on US Route 5 to which becomes North Main Street. Counting 8 buildings north of the Wells River Savings Bank, on the left, is the Italianate-style home of Roswell Farnham, Vermont's Governor from 1880 to 1882. In the l9th century this portion of the community was home to wealthier merchants and other influential families of Bradford.

Just a bit further along and setting back near the rear of the United Church of Christ is the Old Church. This building was built as the first “town church” in 1795. It was moved to this site from the Upper Plain in 1836 and relocated to the rear in 1876 when the newer Congregational church was built. It was later used as a meeting place, fraternal hall, and movie theater and is now the home of the Old Church Community Theater. Notice in the steeple of the adjacent church the Town Clock, a reminder of pre-standard time.

Across the road is the Bradford Academy - Woods School Building. This building and the library were built using an 1893 bequest from John Lund Woods, a wealthy Ohio industrialist born in nearby Corinth. The building replaced a wooden 1820 Academy and served as the public high school until 1971. It now houses town offices and the Bradford Historical Society museum. The museum features a James Wilson Globe. (Currently undergoing restoration off-site.) In Bradford, in 1809, Wilson manufactured the first globes made in America.







Continue north to Wrights Avenue, on the left, where you will find another horse watering box and an Historic Marker that cites the accomplishments of Capt. Charles Clark and James Wilson.