Mrs S Belfast Harbor

Mrs S Belfast Harbor

View of the Upper Bridge (to the left) and houses located on the approach to the bridge from Robbins Rd. The Upper Bridge was located off Upper High Street and connected Belfast with the east side at the intersection of the Robbins Road and the Patterson Hill Road. It was a wooden drawbridge. In 1876, the draw tender, Hollis Smart was paid $140.00. The bridge was almost entirely rebuilt in 1895 by Bancroft Huzzy Conant & Sanford Hills Mathews as contractors at a cost of $972.50. It was destroyed by the freshet of 1896 (river flooding from heavy rains or snow melt) and was, again, rebuilt. The upper bridge was closed in 1959. Note the advertisement for Climax Chew on the railing adjacent to the road. This is likely Climax plug tobacco manufactured by P. Lorillard. At the end of the nineteenth century, P. Lorillard and Company stood as one of the leading recognized brand-name manufacturers in America, one of the oldest manufacturers of tobacco products, and was the nation's largest manufacturer of tobacco. It became synonymous with the production of all manner of tobacco including snuff, plug, chewing, and smoking tobacco, numbering over 160 brands. In 1883, the company reported sales of over $10 million a year in domestic and foreign trade from the production of over 25 million pounds of tobacco products.