RICHMOND — Workers preparing for construction of the new Richmond-Dresden bridge in 2013 discovered bunches of old attached logs underwater stuck up against the piers of the old bridge.

At the time, experts speculated there was reason to believe the timbers could have been part of the roof of the blockhouse of Winslow’s Fort Halifax, which was washed away in the flood of 1987.

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Workers recover timbers of the Fort Halifax blockhouse from the Kennebec River, in the weeks after a 1987 flood destroyed the historic building. Staff file photo

HISTORY: The original blockhouse at Fort Halifax in Winslow, built in 1754, was the oldest wooden structure of its type until 1987 when it was swept away in a flood. Timbers salvaged after the flood were used in the rebuilding of the blockhouse, shown here in 2008. Portland Press Herald file photo by Gregory Rec

Turns out, they weren’t.

With the new bridge now complete, workers in April had a chance to look more closely at the mass of timbers, and determined they appear to be from one of the hundreds of pieces of cribwork that once were prevalent along the river — not part of the original Fort Halifax roof.

“They were just some timber from cribbing on the river,” said Leith Smith, a state archaeologist who oversaw a historic dig site on the Richmond shore.

Smith said the timbers had iron spikes in them and had overlapping joints, which is different from the Fort Halifax blockhouse construction style. The timbers stuck up against the old bridge piers were also about eight-feet-long, while Smith said the timbers of the Halifax blockhouse should be about 20 feet long.

He said the cribbing could have come from one of a large number of cribworks on the river, possibly associated with the logging or ice harvesting industry.

The timbers were pulled up out of the water and disposed of by Woolwich-based contractor Reed & Reed, as demolition of the old bridge’s last remaining piers neared completion at the site.

The Fort Halifax blockhouse was considered the oldest wooden blockhouse in the United States before it was swept away by the 1987 flood.

Some original timbers from the blockhouse were recovered downriver after the flood, some as far away as Casco Bay. But the roof was never found.

A replica of the blockhouse was built, in part with the timbers recovered from the river, at its original Fort Halifax site in 1988.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @kedwardskj

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