The safety of bridges and the question of equity for highway tolls have been two hot topics in recent months, but those were issues of concern and interest in this part of Maine a century ago, too.

Covered bridges were common and a good many of them collected tolls from all travelers who wished to use them.

One of the interesting items I found among old pictures and papers at our family farm was a toll bridge pass. It was issued to my great-grandparents’ family in 1857 to pay for use of the covered bridge between Auburn and Lewiston where Longley Memorial Bridge now stands. The pass, about the size of a dollar bill, was signed by E.G. Little and its cost was $2 a year.

There was another covered bridge spanning the Androscoggin River many years ago at North Turner. It linked that area with Leeds at the confluence of Dead River with the Androscoggin, sometimes called “Great River” at that time.

As early as 1825, the residents petitioned the Maine Legislature for incorporation and the first bridge at that location was completed in 1828. It was one lane, 260 feet long, 32 feet wide and it was built for about $5,000.

Like many wooden bridges of the past, they were subject to destruction in spring freshets, the term used for the floodwater stage following the winter snow melt. It was only 11 years later when the mighty Androscoggin “humped its back and shoved aside this bridge,” as well as others at Turner Center, Jay, Canton and other places.

As Edith Labbie wrote in the Lewiston Evening Journal Magazine Section in August of 1971, the residents of Turner began to rebuild immediately, but tragedy marked its construction when George Emerson, the bridge superintendent, fell from the top onto the eastern abutment. His spine was seriously injured and he died the following December.

The price tag for this large, double-lane wooden covered bridge also was about $5,000, and it survived from 1840 until the flood of 1936. During most of its lifetime, two buildings stood at the Turner end of the bridge. The tollkeeper lived in the house on the left, and the North Turner Bridge Post Office was on the right.

In those early days, the stagecoach from Paris to Augusta crossed the river at that location.

A weathered board across the tollkeeper’s house gave the rates. People crossing on foot paid two cents; people on horseback, six cents; cart, wagon, sled or sleigh drawn by one animal, 10 cents; by two animals, 21½ cents, with another two cents for each additional animal.

Labbie noted that people who could afford a chaise or sulky drawn by a horse were considered wealthy, so it cost them 16 cents to cross the bridge. Cattle, horses or mules, not ridden, cost their owner two cents each. Sheep or swine were half a cent each, with the driver passing free of charge.

The bridge’s two lanes of traffic were separated by a heavy beam running down the center of the passageway. The stagecoach toll was 35 cents, and probably there was a sign warning drivers not to run their horses on the bridge.

Labbie wrote that Col. Lee Strickland operated a variety store at the North Turner covered bridge before 1833 and he served as postmaster. He sold the business to Church P. Leavitt, who kept both the store and the post office open for 23 years.

Leavitt ran his store on strict temperance principles, Labbie said. He later built a hotel there, which he operated for 10 years, then leased to other people. The fortunes of businesses at the North Turner Covered Bridge faded when the railroad drew traffic away from the riverside community. A small store and blacksmith shop were the last businesses at the bridge site.

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and a native of Auburn. He can be reached by email ast dasargent@maine.com.