Derek S. Hines Memorial Bridge

The Derek S. Hines Memorial Bridge and the Newburyport Chain Bridge are on opposite sides of Deer Island, and they connect to create the crossing.

The first bridge at this site was called the Essex-Merrimack Bridge and was open on November 26, 1792. The bridge was constructed over seven months and was a timber-arch truss bridge. This was the first bridge over the navigable waters of the Merrimack River. The bridge was designed by a local architect named Timothy Palmer, who designed a new truss type for this crossing. He designed a highly cambered long span truss out of wood which resembled the stone arch bridges from mid-16th Century Italy. He later patented this truss type as the Palmer’s Truss.

The bridge was covered in 1810 to protect it. It was replaced with an iron truss drawbridge in 1882. In 1965 the timber deck on the bridge caught fire, and the state replaced the bridge with a steel girder swing bridge. The bridge was closed for repairs in 2008, when a barge struck the bridge while traveling upriver and left the swing bridge unable to completely close.

The bridge was closed again in 2010, and was replaced with the current structure, which opened in 2012. It is unclear how the NBI came up with 1850 as the original construction date. The bridge is a swing bridge, where the middle two spans rotate about the center pier to allow boats to pass.

The bridge was renamed Derek S. Hines Memorial Bridge in 2006 in memory of 1st Lieutenant Derek S. Hines. Hines was a Newburyport resident who was killed in action in Afghanistan on September 1, 2005, at the age of twenty-five.