Status: Progress Made
2004: A brief engineering study was commissioned by Somerset Co. in 2004, which determined that the bridge was in good condition. The roadway on the bridge was narrowed to keep trucks away from the bridge’s lateral spandrels.
06/2007: Somerset County has taken ownership of the Old Stone Bridge and the county grant program has facilitated a National Register nomination as well as a HSR report, both draft reviews having been completed.
2008: The Old Stone Bridge has been officially listed in the New Jersey and National Registers as the Old Stone Arch Bridge.
This triple-arch bridge is one of the oldest surviving stone bridges in New Jersey and a rare example of colonial highway engineering. Construction of the bridge was authorized by the Legislature in 1730. It was probably built soon thereafter to span the Green Brook, a channel of the Bound Brook, and form part of a causeway that crossed a large area of marshy ground along the Bound Brook and Raritan River.
The bridge played a significant role in the defense of Bound Brook during the Revolutionary War, and it is one of the few existing battlefield resources in New Jersey for which a first-hand action account exists. The diary of Hessian officer Johann von Ewald records the fighting along the causeway during the Battle of Bound Brook in April 1777. Made of locally quarried rough sandstone and shale, the bridge spans the boundary between Somerset and Middlesex counties and the boroughs of Bound Brook and Middlesex.
Approximately 85 feet long and 33 feet wide, its remains are almost completely buried by fill on its north side; on the south side they are exposed above the top of the arches, including two large buttresses, one of which is relatively intact. The bridge is threatened by neglect, deterioration, and vandalism. At present, ownership of the site is uncertain as neither of the counties nor the towns involved seem to want responsibility for this important archaeological resource.
Thomas D’Amico, Somerset Co. Cultural & Heritage Commission,
PO Box 3000
Somerville, NJ 08876