Excerpt:
One of the foremost engineers and architects in the United States had connections with both North Carolina and Rowan County in the period between 1818 and 1840. His name was Ithiel Town, a Connecticut Yankee who was born in 1784, the son of a farmer.
As a youth he worked as a carpenter and taught school. Adventuring to Boston he acquired a knowledge of architecture under Asher Benjamin, an architect and prolific writer on the subject. While there he was chosen to make improvements on the State House at Boston.
His reputation was made in 1814 when he designed Center Church on the New Haven, Connecticut green. He later designed the state capitols in Indianapolis, Indiana and in Raleigh.
On January 28, 1820 he was granted a patent for a truss bridge and from that time forward he was the best known bridge builder in the country. His return from this work was greater than from his work as an architect. He published in 1821 a book on iron and wood bridges which became the bible for bridge-building in America.
Annotation:
Biography with details of his design of a bridge across the Cape Fear River. Includes an album of Town lattice truss covered bridges