The Singing Bridge

A friend sent me this picture of the iconic suspension bridge that crosses over Eggemoggin Reach between Sedgwick and Little Deer Isle. The handwriting on the bottom reads, “Dedication Day June 19, 1938. Deer Isle - Sedgwick Bridge.”

When I was very young, we crossed a similar bridge in a place I can no longer name. My mother — an elementary school music teacher — told us to listen carefully, because the bridge was a harp for the wind and sometimes one might hear it singing. When we first came to Stonington, I told my children that this was “The Singing Bridge,” and in our family, the name has stuck.

Visiting the island before we moved here, each crossing of the bridge was a moment to take a deep breath. The change was visceral. The quotidian stresses that hunched our backs, the worries and doubts cricked our necks, were no match for the strong Atlantic breezes blowing through the open windows. And there is something portentous and sublime to the approach when the fog hangs low on the Reach, as it so often does, and the center span disappears into the silver white unknown.

The bridge is just over 2500 feet in length, a hair under 24 feet in width, which is painfully evident when passing a tractor trailer hauling lobsters off island. It was designed by the renowned bridge architect David Steinman. You can read more about its historical significance at the Historic Bridges website.